Stripes
by El-Kat-o
Summary: Five years after the end of Final Fantasy 7, AVALANCHE is the new ShinRa, and as president, Cloud Strife is losing his grip on reality when he starts hearing a voice that he thinks is Aeris'.
1. Chapter 1

The distant sirens of police cars echoed in one of the more dingy alleyways of the city. An early morning fog was beginning to thicken around the tops of the mismatched street lamps. Awkward intervals of amber and pale green trying to act like it's white illuminated the sides of the buildings across the main road. Two hours ago, some of the older citizens were still sitting on their stoops, watching their kids line up behind the graveyard-shift ice cream truck as it stopped on their corner. The stoop-sitters had since gone to bed, and the murders taking place in the city tonight were on the west side of Junon, so nobody but the nightowls sitting in front of their computers would have taken notice of the black figure stalking the street. 

Marching along with a confidence and a jacket that didn't belong to him, the man turned down an alley landmarked by a dull flourescent-white-blue street lamp, which barely illuminated a couple of reflective metal street-signs that read "TOWNHOUSE/STUDIO FOR RENT --->"

The chains on his boots rattled sinisterly through the polluted urban hallway. A bum slid further into his alcove as the lanky, angry silhouette of the man cut off the dusty purple ray of light. The black of the end of the alley was being disturbed by the slow flicker of a dying neon sign. The man continued toward it, streaking his fingers across the dirty glass of a studio window as he went.

Closer inspection of the sign revealed it to be the "LODGING." The pathetic red sign buzzed "ED'S TA ERN ND IN ." The man stood in front of it for a moment, looking at it as if pondering whether to euthanize it or not. After a few moments, he reached a hand out and the missing V flickered back to life. That was good enough for now.

Ed's had had another slow night, but that was expected. Ever since ShinRa fell, business had died. Ed sighed. ShinRa. It had been just five years since they had been toppled from their throne and AVALANCHE's idealist regime had replaced them. Idealists. Always thinking they could do nothing but good. They do the worst kind of bad.

With their utter lack of resources, AVALANCHE could not afford to replace ShinRa as a power company and, to survive, had to pick up where ShinRa had left off.

Junon, and many other parts of the world, were still being powered by Mako. The threat of Meteor was gone, and the scar that the gigantic space parasite JENOVA had left was healing, and there was no more weird research going on, but Cloud Strife, as head of AVALANCHE, had outlawed ALL research related to mako, including dismantling and containing it.

It was disgusting the amount of propoganda that was posted up everywhere to let him get away with it. Every time an argument to the contrary came up, Strife and his propoganda police would post another gruesome result of science up on all the television screens, and all the people could do was shake their heads and sigh and go back to duct-taping their air pollution filters to their windows.

The hope that Junon would return to the humble little port town it used to be faded completely once AVALANCHE had recently declared Junon its capital city in July. Small gangs were becoming more and more violent, but Strife had prepared for such an event, and recruited former members of ShinRa's Turks organization into his personal enforcement squad. Now even the revolutionist punks were de-fanged.

Ed sighed.  
Something was going have to to give very soon.  
Oh, the good old days of ShinRa...

The creak of the door opening stirred Ed from his reverie. The only other customer, a regular, was sound asleep on the counter, with his regular 512 gil tip melting under an empty mug from condensation. He didn't stir, even as the bell rang.

'Good old Farf...' Ed thought, but was caught off-guard by the new customer's appearance. He looked to be in his mid thirties and had short, black hair, cut to a fade in the back, with a set of bangs that were cut long in front of his face, and reminded him of a smaller scale version of the posters of Sephiroth that were always posted up everywhere ten years ago. The man wore a black leather jacket that looked like it was stolen off a drunk teenager. Local band patches were safetypinned to it, and the shoulderpads were reinforced at home and given spikes. It didn't fit him. Underneath the jacket was a white tank top with bloodstains that looked like they didn't quite come out in the wash. The man was wearing a pair of worn out jeans, and black, cuban-heeled boots with chains crossing the heel and the front of the foot. Ed didn't get many punk rock people at his place, but there was something about this man that didn't fit.

His demeanor came off as severely self-conscious. His left hand quickly jerked to his face the moment Ed got a good look at the gigantic four-lined clawmark it sported. His eyes were obscured completely by a very dark pair of sunglasses. When Ed continued to stare, the man seemed to loosen up, and dropped his hand from his face.

"Looks like you've been in a tangle with the head of the Turks," Ed said, turning around quickly and pulling a bottle of liquor with a very long neck and a stout base out from under the counter. The bottom of it was littered with tiny gold filings, and the label on the bottle read 'Nibelheim - XXXX-70.' Ed poured the man a shotglass and offered it to him. "I tip my hat to any man brave or stupid enough to dance with that monster and survive."

The man let out a sigh of relief through his nose and grinned. He stepped forward and took the shot, wincing as the alchohol burned down his throat. "XXXX-70. That was the year I was born," he mused, grinning, knowing in full that Ed didn't believe him. "Best batch of Goldschlager Nibelheim ever made." He sat the shotglass back down on the bar and took a seat, gazing at the bottle rather lustfully. "That was like having a nice dinner with a friend I haven't seen in years. Thank you for the oppurtunity, Edward Thompson."

Ed blinked. "H-how did you know my--"  
"Name? I looked you up in the phone book. I'm here to see about buying that studio next door to you," the man said, pulling out a torn page of the Junon Times Want Ad section with a tiny ad at the bottom circled in a vintage mako highlighter.

Ed couldn't help but be entranced by the sound of this man's voice. Ed himself was going on 30, and this man didn't seem much older than he was, but he carried himself like he was something much bigger than he appeared to be. "Er, um, yeah...y-yeah, I remember that ad."

"I'm willing to pay six months rent up front for it."

"You really don't have to pay that much up front, sir."

"Oh, but I want to," the man chided.

Ed was beyond disturbed. "Sounds like you want it pretty badly. All right. Let me find the paperwork for it and I can let you in in ten minutes if you like."

The man smiled genuinely and swiveled himself around in the barstool. "Thank you, young man!"

Ed gave the man a dirty look behind his back and ran off to get the paperwork and keys.

The man sighed and drank in the sights and smells of the cluttered old bar-room. Nothing white. Nothing sterile. Everything looked comfortably, if impoverishedly, lived in. Leaning his head back against the bar, his sunglasses tipped a bit so that he could see the warm, pre-mako styled lighting fixtures. So unfamiliar and new to him, but just as respectable. He loved it. Loved the jerry-rigged piping held up by duct-tape, the newspaper clippings garishly disorganized on a corkboard that hung on an equally garish lime green wall, and the lovely little sign that was doing its best and being more beautiful by just being only half of itself...

He sighed a lover's sigh and awkwardly jumped back up in his seat as Ed returned with the deed to the studio, nearly falling off it. Cautiously, Ed showed him where he thought he was supposed to sign and who to call when anything was wrong with the place. Once all the paperwork was done, Ed folded it up in a yellowed document envelope that was probably older than he was, and handed it and ta set of keys to the man.

"So...you some sort of artist or something?"

"Oh, just about every sort of artist," the man replied, shrugging out of his punk-jacket and revealing not only the part of the claw-scar that travelled below his neck and over his shoulder, but a set of three parallel chevrons at 90 degree angles in heavy black ink travelling in zigzags around both of his arms.

"Wow! Did you do both of those yourself?"

"It was a pain in the ass to get all the angles right. I also have...these," he said, pausing to lift up his wife-beater to show the three black parallel lines that cradled his ribcage and came around on both sides to form another downward chevron on his lower back. "But I needed help with that."

"Jesus. It's still really cool, though!"

"I'm sorry I don't have much else to show you. My...portfolio of work seems to have deteriorated recently."

"Well, with that studio, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to come up with something new and just as impressive." "Thank you very much. I'm going to refer all my customers to this place after they're done," the man said and turned to walk out. "Er...same here! Wait, sir! I didn't get your name."

The man thought for a moment and closed his eyes, remembering just four days ago how he had sat and watched the waves crash on the shore and pull straight overlapping Vs into the sand as the water pulled back, not very much unlike what was emblazoned on his forearms. "I guess you can call me Stripes."

Tifa Strife stepped out of the elevator and padded across the plush blue carpet of her husband's office. He was arguing with Cid again.

"I don't care! I said it before and I'll say it again! This company will NOT employ another scientist!"

"God dammit, Strife! Shera's working her ass off trying to find a way to power the new rocket without mako! We need people to help her out!"

Cloud Strife sat back and rubbed his temples. "Cid, I'm sorry, but you're going to -have- to get some outside help on this. The only reason I let this company even have a space exploration program was to get little kids off the street and into the space museum."

Cid snarled and put his hands on the edge of Cloud's desk. "You paranoid little fuck! We need a science department anyway to find out new ways to generate the power! We're gunna run outta coal pretty soon here, Cloud!"

"Get your hands off my desk, you...you...you foul-mouthed...thing! Or you can kiss your little rockets goodbye and be a ticket salesman for the airline!"

Cid straightened and tugged at his tie. He hated that thing almost as much as he hated wearing that ugly green suit, but he always had to wear it in the presence of his majesty, King Cloud. _'What the hell's going through the little bastard's mind? He always preaches about they could never resemble the fucking ShinRa in any way, but he's kept even the department color schemes the same! MORON!'_

Cid had never really been against the God-damned ShinRa in the God-damned first place. It was only when they tampered with his God-damned rocket that got him God-damned pissed off. He didn't think he could God-damned keep this up much God-damned longer.

"Yes, _sir_," Cid growled through clenched teeth, turning on his heel and exiting.Tifa shrank back into the wall by the elevator. She wished she had the guts to go and tell Cloud how stupid he was acting. But she dared not. Whenever she did, he would always mention -her-. Aeris had been so glowing, kind and warm. Aeris had never said anything to make him angry. Aeris had never been butch or domineering. Those thoughts seemed to keep Tifa in line, even though there was hardly a need. Aeris was dead. Tifa was Cloud's wife. It shouldn't have mattered at all whether or not Tifa was butch or didn't giggle like a schoolgirl all the damn time. Then why did it?

Tifa wondered these things as she looked down at her dress. It was, of all colors, pink. Her blazer was pink. Her shoes were pink. Her lipstick and eyeshadow and rouge were pink. Why was she wearing pink! She hated pink. Was it for Cloud? Cloud...was Cloud really worth being a cream puff? Tifa steeled herself and emerged from behind the elevator.Cloud had sat himself down at his desk again and started to do what he did just about all day, every day: play with his pencil sharpener. Tifa cleared her throat and Cloud had a slight seizure, nearly falling out of his chair and getting back up rapidly to give the impression that he had been working hard. He scowled down at his legal pad as if he were contemplating some important figures. Which were, in fact several pathetic looking stick figures of himself and Tifa. He looked up and smiled. "Hi, honey! How's work today? I've just been converting these complicated rate figures into--"Tifa picked up the legal pad, looked at it, and put it back down. Such a child.Cloud gave her a neutered look as she put it back down and turned away. "H-hey, Tifa? TIFA! Where are you going! Tifa!"Tifa stepped back into the elevator. She could see Cloud clambering to jump over his desk through the glass. It looked rather sad and pathetic. Cloud had succeeded in toppling his desk on its side. The machinery in the elevator started to whir and Tifa began to sink below the 50th floor level. Cloud got up to the elevator as the top of her head disappeared.

Vincent Valentine enjoyed his new job immensely. Probably because it was his old job, but it didn't MATTER. The junior members of the Turks flocked around him as young Bhuddist priests flocked around the Dalhi Llama, brimming with stupid questions they knew the answers to in the first place and free beer. Reno and Rude had dragged him along as their new official drinking buddy. Elena had a monstrous crush on him.

It was as if Tseng had never died. Only, Tseng didn't have a big gold claw where his left arm should have been. He often was never alone, so he never got to brood about Lucrecia anymore. In fact, he had become quite a public figure. They made posters with his picture on it, taped him when he sang at Carafe. It was bliss.Reno and Rude dragged him into Ed's the night after Tifa disappeared. Near midnight, a man with sunglasses came into the bar. He seemed vaguely familiar to Vincent, but he was too wasted to tell who it was. He conversed and joked enormously with Reno and Rude, but when Vincent decided he was brave enough to talk to him, he got up and brushed past him without even a second look. "Who was that guy, guys?" Vincent asked.

Rude picked Reno's head up off the bar by his bangs and the redheaded Turk replied: "Him? Ya mean to tell ush that ya dunt know good ol' Schtripes?"

"Stripes?"

Reno hiccuped."Yeah. He ownsh the tattoo parlor cross the sctreet. Been thar since aut two days ago!"

Rude nodded. "The man does hic WICKED designs, man! You should -shee- what he c'n do! Showwem yers, Ed!"

Ed rolled up his sleeve and showed the three Turks the neat, angry little fire-spitting dragon on his shoulder. "It's a beauty, iddnit?"

Vincent brought his nose up to it to see it better. Down near the end of the tail, barely visible, was a little number 15. Vincent knotted his brow. He had once encountered something that had been connected with numbers, but he couldn't seem to remember what it was... "Very noyshe! hic Very noyshe indeed! Wonder what kinna art school th' man wentta. Hey...whassat little number for there, Edness?"

Ed paused. He hadn't really noticed. "I hadn't really noticed. It kinna jes' blends in so well that I didn't even see it! Lookit that..."

_Numbersh..._ Vincent thought, _where have I sheen numbersh before?_


	2. Chapter 2

Tifa walked through the streets of Junon wearing her old clothes.

She was cold.

A tank top, a miniskirt and suspenders weren't the warmest things in the world to wear, especially in the beginning of fall.

She had run away three days ago.

Tifa figured that Cloud would send the Turks after her, after all, she was his wife and deep down inside, she knew that he loved her...she hoped he loved her.

But that was not the point.

He would have to stop acting as if he didn't.

Cloud didn't belong at the head of a monopolizing power company. He belonged behind the desk of his own nick-nack shop. Lord knows they had bought so much stuff on their journey to defeat Sephiroth five years ago to set them for life just about anywhere. Cloud owned his own condo in Costa Del Sol. He and Tifa could have lived out their lives in luxury by the sunny beach! Why the hell had that dummy placed himself under that much stress? It was going to kill him!

A cold wind blew through the streets and Tifa shivered.

She REALLY wished she had bought some -decent- new clothes.

She had had five whole years to do so...so why didn't she!

Tifa cursed herself for her stupidity and looked around for a place to warm up. She turned into an alleyway and walked down it. No signs were mounted along the walls. The only light came from a door at the end.

It was yellow, almost orange.

It gave off the impression of being at least a little friendly.

A sudden bolt of lightning pierced the sky, illuminating the area.

The warm, yellow light flashed neon green for a split second.

Tifa had her head turned to the sky.

"God dammit...now it's going to rain!"

Tifa ran for the light as it started to drizzle.

The door was open, thankfully, and Tifa shoved herself inside.

She looked around. The place looked much like an inn. It had a front desk, and an open guestbook. A couple comfy looking chairs dotted the lobby. She decided that this was definately an inn.

She looked around for a teller, but there was nobody behind the desk.

_Well...may as well sign the guestbook,_ Tifa thought to herself, taking the pen in her hand.

She looked at the peculiar little guestbook.

The numbers started at 15.

There had been no other pages before.

A name occupied #15: Edward Thomson.

Tifa wrote a T in the 16 slot, but stopped.

_The Turks might pass by this area...better not sign my own name._

Tifa put her first initial down and thought for a while.

_Maiden name was Lockheart...easily referenced..._

Tifa recalled a song her father used to sing to her when she was a child.

Edel weiss  
Edel weiss  
Ev'ry morning you greet me  
Small and white  
Clean and bright  
You seem happy to meet me  
Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow  
Bloom and grow for-ever  
Edel weiss  
Edel weiss

Bless my homeland forever.Tifa recalled...edelweiss were little white flowers that occasionally dotted the Nibelheim landscape. They meant "precious white" in Nibelheim's archaic, forever unused, native language. Tifa didn't think of herself as precious at the moment, but she was sure somebody did. She changed the T she had written down to a believable E. and put her last name down as White.

The only person that could possibly track her down from that obscure reference was her father...and her father was...

She didn't want to think about that.

Anything but that.

She wanted to be mad at Cloud now!

Lightning crashed.

"In my veins...flows the blood of the Ancients."

NO! Tifa didn't want to think about Sephiroth!

She wanted to stay mad at Cloud!

Cloud...Cloud had killed Sephiroth...

Killed him for killing his mother...

Killed him for killing her father...

NO!

Killed him for killing his friend...

His friend...

His friend that was -her- boyfriend.

His friend that he himself pretended to be.

His friend that he still thought he was...

There. That was better.

If she could stay mad at Cloud, her running away could be justified.

Tifa put down the guestbook pen again and started to look upstairs for the innkeeper. It became apparent that this hadn't been an inn for very long. The paint was fresh, and the carpet was clean. It wasn't easy to keep anything clean in Junon these days.

On the second floor was a sitting room, a bathroom and a room full of art supplies...and another set of stairs. Could the innkeeper be an artist?

The third floor had another room full of art supplies, a laundry room and a small bedroom with a single bed. What kind of an inn was this?

She stepped into the room and looked at the floor. Slightly messy, with a few hundred pens strewn around on the ground, half of them chewed off at the ends. There was a phone with a green neon light around it on the end table by a lamp that hadn't been turned off. The bed was half-made. The room smelled like Old Spice. Tifa was beginning to doubt this was an inn at all.

A small stereo rested on the dresser behind the door. A squiggly CD tower stood next to it. Tifa took a close look at the titles.

Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral  
Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals  
Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine  
Stabbing Westward - Darkest Days  
Smashing Pumpkins - Adore  
Smashing Pumpkins - Machina  
Madonna - Ray of Light  
Cher - Believe Single  
Sting - Ten Summoner's Tales  
A Charlie Brown Christmas  
Les Miserables Soundtrack  
The Midgar Neutered Boys' Choir Sings 20 Christmas Classics  
Weird Al Yankovic - Bad Hair Day

Tifa had abolished the thought of this being an inn by now. She wondered why a person would leave their residence unlocked. Especially in Junon. That was just plain stupid.

Then again, not many residences had guestbooks. Tifa was puzzed beyond puzzing puzzleness.

She took that puzzlement up to the forth floor, and out the door onto the roof. It was raining as if God himself had had someone dear to Him die. She looked around, through the rain...

Lightning crashed.

...and saw the figure of a man in a white tank top near the edge of the roof.

"Sir, don't jump! It's not worth it!" she cried.

The man had been leaning on the edge of the roof with his elbows. He pushed himself up and turned around. "Young lady, I think you should observe things more carefully before you make such a rash judgement."

Tifa blinked. That voice sounded a little bit familiar. She couldn't place it, though. "I'm sorry, sir. It...well...just seemed the thing to assume with all this rain pouring down."

"Suicide rate has gone up since ShinRa fell...heh."

Tifa smiled, crossed her arms and nodded. Another thing to be mad at Cloud for.

"Yes, sir, but you shouldn't just stay up on the roof like this dressed like that in the middle of the rain. You'll catch--"

"Pneumonia and die! HAHAHA!" the man laughed as if he had said those words one thousand times over.

The man stepped closer and Tifa could see his face. He didn't appear to be much older than 30. His sunglasses shielded her view of his eyes, but not the three jagged red lines across his face. He had apparently been standing by the roof since before it had started to rain.

He looked her up and down. "You don't seem to be dressed appropriately for the weather, either."

Tifa looked down and immediately covered herself up.

The man motioned for her to step back in the door to go downstairs, and she did. He followed behind her, locking the door behind him. They didn't speak until they reached the main lobby on the first floor.

The man looked at his guestbook. "Miss...White? You don't seem the type to want a tattoo..."

Tifa started. "T-tattoo! No, no...I thought this was an inn! I don't want a tattoo! I'm a good girl, I am!"

"You must forgive me. I've only been in town for three days. I haven't gotten a sign yet."

"You were up on the roof the entire time? What were you doing there? Were you watching me?"

"You? No, my dear, I was waiting for the rain."

"But it's so cold out there already! I'm beginning to think maybe you -did- have a death wish."

"What about you? How long have you been wandering around like that?"

Tifa covered herself up again in shame. "Three days..."

"Stay there. Let me get you a towel," said the man, running upstairs.

It was then that Tifa noticed the strange markings on his arms...

Lightning crashed.

Tifa gasped and fell back into one of the lobby chairs. Was it a trick of the light? Was it just her brain eroding away? Was it just a...flipper she just saw in the lightning?

Flipper...no, not a flipper...it was more like a shark fin...or a sharpened knife.

Tifa shook her head. It was only that she was getting sick from running around for three days. Yes, that was it...Tifa sighed. She was getting too old for this shit.

The man came back down with a large, white towel and dropped it on her head.

"There. That thing'll keep you warm through an Icicle Inn-sized blizzard and then some!"

Tifa uttered a muffled "Thank you!" and closed her eyes.

She felt safe in this place - for now. There was something about it that made it feel like home. Something about the way that man moved...She couldn't place it...Tifa took the towel off her head and took another look at him.

He was rather puny...though he seemed to be working out.

He rummaged through some files behind the counter as if he had lost something important. He kicked the desk.

Zangan!

That was how Zangan kicked!

She remembered her old martial arts teacher fondly. She supposed this man was one of his older students. "Excuse me, sir...but I don't know your name."

"People call me Stripes," said Stripes, taking out a small paintbrush and testing something on his striped arm.

He was left-handed.

"Gee...I wonder why they call you that!"

"Don't be too liberal with your use of the sarcasm button, Miss White. Might get you into some deep...shee-yat, if you take my meaning," Stripes warned, testing out a new word he had learned at Ed's yesterday. "What's your real name?"

Tifa gulped. "I'd...rather not say."

"Oh? Why is that?"

"I'm running away from...people. If they question you, they might get you arrested."

"Fine."

"You can call me Edel."

"Edel White..." Stripes looked at Tifa with a disbelieving smirk.

Tifa brightened. "Yes! Edel White. I...'m a student at the local college. I study..."

Lightning crashed.

"...Mako emissions!"

Stripes laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"I thought Mako energy was outlawed. I heard President Strife--"

"DON'T TALK ABOUT SOMEBODY YOU DON'T KNOW!" Tifa snapped.

Stripes stepped back and blinked. "Excuse me..."

Tifa wrapped herself up in the towel and looked at the floor. "I'm sorry..."

Stripes shook his head. "You needn't be, child. I think you need to rest."

"Where's the nearest inn, then?"

Stripes sighed exasperatedly, but with good humor. "You don't have to pull the non-imposion stunt with me, Edel..."

"You mean I can sleep in your room?"

"No. I have a really nice couch upstairs in one of the supply rooms. I would rather you dry yourself off first, though. The bathroom's on the second floor. I'll -try- to find you some dry clothes. You must excuse me, for I don't have much in the way of anything a woman would wear. I don't cross-dress."

Tifa laughed heartily at this. She remembered when "Claudia," Aeris and herself had stormed Don Corneo's mansion. It was -her- idea, but it sure turned out to be funny. Hah...the old geezer had chosen Cloud...what a dimwit.

Tifa stopped laughing with a sigh. Stripes looked at her as if she had three heads.

"My own little private joke...eheh..."

Stripes smiled and sent her upstairs.

Lightning crashed.

Behind his sunglasses, Stripes' eyes glowed green...

A brighter green...

Than that of his son's. 


	3. Chapter 3

"Stripes" had been right about not having any clothes that could fit a girl.  
After she came out of the bathroom, Stripes had obviously forgotten to fulfill his promise of finding her clothes and sent her into his room herself. All she found in his closet were one or two beat up flannel shirts, about thirty or so wife-beaters and a leather jacket. She wasn't going to touch anything that had been flung on the floor and she was embarrassed to go searching through his buraeus. She decided to ask and ran back up the stairs, nearly colliding with him.

"ACK!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Stripes...uh...I wasn't able to find anything in your closet and I don't want to be rummaging through your dressers without your per--"

"Help yourself."

Tifa turned red. "But I--"

Stripes turned her around and pushed her gently back towards the room. "Get dressed, child, you're starting to stink."

Tifa, who had just spent the past 3 days running around Junon, snorted. "Heh. Starting?"

Stripes pointed Soup-Naziesquely. "Go."   
Tifa _went._

_Why does he treat me as if I were three?_

Tifa approached one of the four dressers placed around Stripes' bedroom.  
Each of them had four drawers.  
"Drawer full of pencils."  
"Drawer full of pens."  
"Drawer full of inks."  
"Drawer full of comic books."  
"Dammit, Stripes, what do you do! Paint yer clothes on!" Tifa yelled.

"There's four dressers in there! You just started with the wrong one!" Stripes shouted up from the first floor in reply.  
"Drawer full of paints."  
"Drawer full of paint brushes."  
"Drawer full of Transformers! STRIPES! Don't you have about 3 other storage rooms!"  
"More than meets the eye!" Stripes sang.  
"Grrr..."  
"Keeeep trying!"  
"Drawer full of whiteout and correction fluid..." Tifa moved to the third dresser.  
"Drawer full of tattoo pens."  
"Drawer full of CDs."  
"Drawer full of BOXER SHORTS!"  
There was a dull thud heard from upstairs.  
Stripes snickered.

Tifa stopped twitching and sat upright again, redfaced, slamming the dresser drawer shut as she moved to the final bureau. She was hoping she wouldn't have to stumble on something like that.  
"Aha...drawer full of t-shirts!"  
"Drawer full of jeans!"  
"Drawer full of crayons!"  
"Drawer full of..." Tifa's voice softened so that Stripes couldn't hear what she was saying, "...playbooks from the old Midgar Theatre..."  
"Woman, you touch those programs and you're dead!"

"Loveless, Once Upon a Mattress, My Fair Lady, Fools of Kulyenchnikov, Death of a Salesman, South Pacific, Othello, Les Miserables..."

"EDEL!"

Tifa's head bolted up with a gasp.  
She had forgotten her nom de plume.  
"Uhh...sorry!"  
"You had better be!"  
_There was that older tone of voice he uses again..._  
Suddenly, Tifa heard the door open.  
Her ears perked as she heard someone step in.  
No...not step...saunter.  
A familiar voice spoke to Stripes: "Heyyy, Stripey-boy! What's shakin'?"  
Whose voice was that?  
Tifa straightened herself up as quietly as she could and peeked downstairs. She saw a fire-engine-red rattail sticking out from a rumpled navy-blue blazer and a bald man in sunglasses.  
_RENO AND RUDE!_  
Tifa gasped and looked for a place to hide. Stripes' room was tiny, so there wasn't much of a choice.  
"Reno! Rude! How's it...hanging? In for a tattoo?" Stripes offered, "I'll...take half off the price for you two! W-what dyeeoou say?"  
Stripes, it seemed, had a hard time with slang.  
_Well, he looks like he's from Wutai, all right..._  
"Naw, man, we're on the job," Reno replied, shaking his head.  
Tifa was sweating bullets. The closet was full, she was too big to fit in a drawer an--  
The bed.  
There was space under the bed.  
Rude held up a picture of Tifa in one of her disgusting pink suits. "Have you seen this girl?"  
Stripes took the picture in his hand and squinted at it. "What a disgusting pink suit."  
There WASN'T room under the bed.  
There were three gigantic plastic storage bins and a decimeter of space between them.  
"Hey, ease up on the poor lady. She's President Strife's wife. She dressed like that to get Cloud to associate Lady Aeris with her. Poor dame. Ran away because of it, I'm guessin'. Have you seen her?" Reno explained  
Tifa stopped.  
Stripes shook his head. "No, I'm sorry. If I had seen her, I'd be all over her with my autograph book and she'd probably would have run away from me. Heh!"  
Rude sighed and shook his shiny head.  
"Have you guys had any good leads at all?"  
Reno shook his head. "Nope. This is the first place we've searched aside from the bar. We got the order on our desk yesterday, but Vincent kinda just forgot to tell us about it till t'night. 'E's gettin' soft, 'e is. Heh heh!"  
Stripes' expression was blank for a while, then suddenly came a great burst of laughter: "Another night of wine, women and song?"  
Rude smiled and posed. "Had a little too much of the wine..."  
Reno completed the quote: "But the WOMEN didn't mind!"  
All three stooges laughed for a moment, then the reality of the case pushed its way back into the realm of priority, strangling the hilarity till it died. Reno wiped some hair out of his face and stretched. "Weylp...better get goin'. Thanks fer nothin', Stripey-boyee!"  
"Yes, I love you too, Reno."  
The Turks opened the door. "G'BYE!"  
SLAM.  
Tifa let out her breath and her head sunk with a sigh of relief to the floor.  
Stripes shook his head and walked up the stairs with a huff.  
Tifa sat bolt-upright in fright as he walked in the door, leaned against it, folded his arms and looked at her. "Y-y-yes?"  
"You've got some explaining to do," Stripes said in the voice that betrayed his age.  
"If you knew who I was when I--"  
"And I knew who you were the moment you walked in my door..."  
"--then why didn't you--"  
"Turn you in? Because you ran away for a reason."  
"I did?"  
Stripes nodded. "Everything has some kind of reasoning behind it. I know not what your reason was, but I'm quite sure you have one."  
"Cloud...has never stopped thinking of Ae-...thinking of -her- since the day she died. I dunno WHY the Hell I could have married him. Even on our wedding day as he said his vows, his eyes, his motions, his words...they all were insincere! Sometimes I wish...sometimes I wish she weren't dead. Then at least Cloud wouldn't pretend!"  
Stripes was silent for a while and looked down. "How old were you when you got married, miss?"  
Tifa looked puzzled. "Twenty-one. ...Why?"  
Stripes looked up at the ceiling and grinned sadly. "Marriage...isn't something you rush into. Marriage is a promise of faith and trust that two people have stopped looking around for mates. Once it's said, that's it. No one else. That's what marriage is. Trust. Unfortunately, most people are attracted to the concept because it guarantees them at least one night of sex, tax benefits, etc, etc. How long had you known Cloud?"  
"Since we were about three..."  
"But didn't he go off somewhere for a while...?"  
"...Yes. Tried and failed to get into SOLDIER. Never saw him again until he was twenty-one."  
"Hmm...Times change. People change, too."  
"But he went to join SOLDIER so I'd notice him...to impress ME."  
"Then what is this thing you speak of concerning A--"  
"Don't even say that name."  
"Whoooo...a cold wind."  
"A justified cold wind!" Tifa fumed, getting to her feet.  
"Woah...woah...calm down! You need to relax for a day or two, get it off your mind." Stripes suggested.  
"I DON'T WANT TO GET IT OFF MY MIND! IT'S BEEN BOTHERING ME FOR FIVE YEARS AND I WANNA END IT! I don't wanna calm down! I wanna stay mad at Cloud! Mad! MAD MAD MAD MAD MAD!" Tifa stomped her feet.  
Stripes frowned. "You look like a twenty-six year old, but you act like a two-year old!"  
Tifa turned red in the face and tears started to surface. "Shut up! If you were in my position, you'd be stomping your feet and bawling your eyes out, too! I'm NOT going to calm down! Justice must be served! I need to stay mad! Do you, Str--"  
SLAP!  
Tifa gasped and rubbed the right side of her face. She looked up into Stripes' sun-glassed, all but hidden, eyes agog. Stripes' expression was stern and cross. He didn't look apologetic at all, as Cloud had done on the occasions he had hit her.  
"What--" Tifa began.  
"Don't talk to me of Justice. Justice has been murdered and strangled in her own bed in the middle of the night with her mouth gagged by a piece of dirty duct tape. What do you think you're going to do? Go back and blow up the AVALANCHE building, ah?"  
Stripes had her licked. And she knew it. Tifa sighed and shook her head.  
"There, now, that's much better."  
"But what am I gunna do nooooooooow?"  
"AFTER you've calmed down substantially, I suggest you go back to AVALANCHE and tell Cloud how you feel...with about ten other people you know in the room who will agree with you. He couldn't stop you then. Depending on that, I hope you can work it out from there."  
"So I can stay?"  
Stripes rolled his eyes. "I said that about a minute ago, didn't I?"  
"I'm sorry, Stripes. I just...I...I..." Tifa couldn't finish. She just started to cry loudly. Stripes repressed the urge to put his fingers in his ears and walk away in disgust. Tifa grabbed the closest thing to cry on she could find, and that was Stripes. He squirmed a bit, but got a little used to it after about 15 seconds.  
A few last peals of thunder from the storm rolled by.  
Lightning crashed.


	4. Chapter 4

A week passed. Tifa scraped the last bits of gil she had and slipped out to a clothing store in an old black cloak she found lying in Stripes' closet and bought some decent new clothes: a few t-shirts and a couple pairs of jeans, and other less public, yet neccesary articles.

Stripes asked her if she was ready every day that week, but she kept declining.  
Every evening, Reno and Rude stopped by, and every evening, Stripes found it harder and harder to lie to his friends.

One time she happened to peek down at the wrong moment and saw Rude staring straight at her. She froze like a deer. But he turned to the side and said nothing.

Customers weren't a problem. Tifa put her hair in a high ponytail and a faceless mask Stripes had pulled out of one of the storage bins whenever somebody came in for a tattoo.

Tifa was mezmerized by Stripes' artistic talent. On Wednesday, somebody came in and demanded Stripes to cover his entire back with little dragons. It took him the rest of the day, Thursday, Friday and Saturday to finish it. Tifa leaned up against the wall as he did his work. Stripes totally engrossed himself in what he did. He didn't eat or sleep until his customer was finished. The entire thing cost about 35000 gil, which the satisfied customer gladly paid.

Once he was finished, Tifa went to take a look at Stripes' guestbook. He was up to 19 now.

Ed the Bartender was 15.

Tifa herself was 16. It seemed odd that he didn't disregard her name and just make the next person 16. He knew she didn't want a tattoo.

A fat old man who wanted a picture of former ShinRa Weapons Manager Scarlet on his arm was 17. Tifa had only watched a little while for that one; she had never been quite fond of Scarlet or fat old men. The man brought in a reference picture, but Stripes rendered Scarlet as if he had known her personally.

A rich little boy who dragged his parents to the place was 18. He screamed and kicked until he got his little picture of his favorite PocketDemon on his shoulder. Stripes gave the parents a receit and a free waiver for a skilled laser surgeon for when the child wanted it removed, which Stripes figured would be in about a month. 

When he wasn't sterilizing his supplies, Stripes was usually to be found staring out the window of his room.  
There was absolutely nothing to see outside there, just another grey building. The city workers were putting up a bilboard in the middle of it. Tifa guessed that that was what he was always watching...but after a more thorough investigation, Tifa noticed that he only stared at it when it -wasn't- being worked on.

Stripes kept a pack of cigarettes on his nightstand, but he never smoked them. It was as if they were just there for show. After a while, Stripes sensed Tifa catching onto him and tried smoking one the next time he sensed her watching him at the window. It wasn't the most successful attempt. As soon as he lit the thing, he started coughing. It wasn't a smoker's cough, obviously.

Tifa rushed into the room to see what was the matter. "Hey...Stripes, you okay?"  
It took Stripes a moment to stop coughing. Tifa could see his eyes watering through his ever-present sunglasses. He nodded painfully. Tifa picked up the pack of AVALANCHE brand cigarettes and scrunched them in her hand. "If they make you cough like that, don't smoke them, Stripes!" "I figured that :cough cough: I figured that if I started smoking myself, I'd fit in a little more with this crowd. :cough: Ohh..." "This crowd? What? The Turks at Ed's? Don't be ridiculous." "I can if I want." "But you don't want to." Stripes looked at the ground and put the cigarette out in the palm of his hand. For a moment, Tifa thought she smelled fromaldahyde. He handed the bent piece of tobbacco, paper and foam to Tifa with a blank expression on his face. "You have a point there, Miss Strife." Tifa looked at the wretched sticklike thing for a moment and closed her eyes. "...Lockheart." "Pardon?" "Tifa Lockheart." "Oh, so I suppose you -are- going through with that divorce thing, eh?" Tifa nodded. "You seem ready to face him." Tifa shook her head vigorously. "No...no, I'm not ready yet. Don't make me go yet, Stripes!" "You act as if I'm just going to push you out into the street when you're ready. Have some sense, woman. I was actually planning to accompany you." Tifa was a little stunned. "Why!" "I want to apologize for hindering the Turks' search." "You don't have to do that Stripes...I--" "Plus I think I should be there to support you if you can't round up enough of your friends." Tifa looked up into Stripes' stern face. He had his mind set on it. She probably wouldn't be able to stop him if she wanted to. Stripes turned back to his billboard. 

President Strife paced about in his office. He hadn't had a decent night's sleep since Tifa left. She had made such a nice pillow and after five years of marriage, Cloud was used to cuddling up with her, no matter how bad they had fought the day before. He used to be able to keep her under control. He wondered what he had done wrong?

There was no way he could have upset Tifa that much by drawing a little picture of them...honestly, now...Cloud knew he couldn't draw, but a stick figure couldn't offend a person that much, now could it? 

He was so confused. He hadn't changed his clothes since she left, either. He reeked like a drowned rat in a butcher shop whose meat freezers had lost power three weeks ago.  
The Turks had better find her.

He pressed the button on his intercom. "YUFFIE!"

"Yes, sir?" the scared voice of Yuffie the Secretary came from the intercom.

"I think Reeve has an appointment with me. Send him in."

"Y-yes sir..."

Yuffie's timid voice faded and Reeve's timid form was shoved into Cloud's office. "M-mm-mister President, sir?"

"Yes, Reeve, what is it?"

"I-I wanted you to overlook this joint advertising program I've been working on with Barret. It's a series of black and white commercials and a huge grant to the Junon Board of Edu--"

Cloud looked at Reeve the way a parent with a third notice on the mortgage payment would look at a child who was begging for a new set of the most expensive rollerskates the department store offered.

"--b-b-but I...don't think you want to hear about that right now, d-ddo you? Sorry, sir...um...I have to go now...bye!"

Reeve was a chicken. He couldn't think of anyone he employed that wasn't a chicken, though. Except for maybe Vincent. Possibly Barret...but he hadn't spoken to Barret since the last board meeting, which was last month. His thoughts wandered back to Tifa.

She had always known she was second best, so why the Hell had she gone and married him?  
Still...Cloud was lonely. He had felt Aeris' presence around him constantly since Sephiroth died, but that wasn't enough. He needed physical companionship.

It really didn't matter much to Cloud -who- it was who did, but marriage had been the assurance of someone he could hold on to every day. Tifa being a hopeless romantic had worked out just fine for Cloud.

"Poor sap..."

Yuffie's voice crackled through the intercom. "Excuse me, sir?"

Cloud looked up, startled. "Huh?" He hadn't realized that he sat down on the intercom button.

"Sir, you want something?"

Cloud thought a while and licked his dry lips.

"Yuffie...can I see you in my office?"

"Y-y-essir.."

Cloud thought a while while Yuffie came in.

(Aeris...I can feel you all around me...all the time. You're still there...right?)

There was a cold wind.  
In Cloud's office.  
With all the windows closed.  
(I knew it.)

As he had seen in Lucrecia's Cave, death could not stop true love.

And the love between Lucrecia and the head of the Turks, in Cloud's opinion, was as true as the sky was blue...well, out of Junon, that was. He'd noticed that first year after Sephiroth's demise that Vincent used to take an hour out of his day every day to visit Lucrecia in her cute little cave. As Yuffie minced in, Cloud wondered if Vincent still did that...

A pink glow filled Cloud's office, with the sound of girlish laughter. Shortly afterward, there came a tortured scream. 

Cloud stumbled out of his office drunk, hardly noticing the sob coming from under his desk.

"An' so...das howwit is now!" Vincent announced, his martini glass raised up in his claw, making mettallic pinking sounds everywhere. He had two bleach-blonde bar regulars at his side, both drooling over him and trying to stroke his hair. Elena looked on with a look of disgust that could kill a small mammal.

Rude blinked innocently and took another sip of his drink. Reno was gaffawing right along with his boss, futily trying to get one of Vincent's girls to look at him.

"Ohh, Vincent, that's soooo romantic!" droned the one on the left.

"Hehehe...what happened to that mean old man?" sighed the one on the right.

Vincent swiped his fingers through his hair devonnaireishly. "I hunted him down by myself until I was run ragged, then shot him dead with a silver bullet between the eyes. I aimed the gun with my claw an schtill hiddim head on!" Vincent hiccuped.

Reno laughed with the ladies even though he knew it was entirely not true. The stormcloud over Elena's head was almost visible. She threw a quarter at Rude's head. "This is for my tab," Elena growled, stomping out of Ed's.

"Stupid sunnovabitch...I hate it when they get him drunk!"

A neon green sign further in the alleyway flickered.

TATTOO

(Creative name for a tattoo parlor. Pfft.)

Elena turned and was about to walk back towards the AVALANCHE building, but something stopped her. Ever since she was a little girl, tattoos had fascinated her. She never missed a chance to go window shopping for them, so she turned around and walked towards the green sign.

The showcase was framed by black lights, and Elena could see some of the phosphorescent designs. They ranged from Celtic to Occult, modern, even a few religious symbols and product logos, dragons and ladies. Dragons, mostly.

Elena thought for a while.  
She'd always wanted a tattoo...  
But she turned away.  
(Naw...maybe later.)

Stripes had scared Tifa away for the day, and so it wasn't until the next day that she met him at his window, staring out at the white sign on the other building as always. He was muttering something to himself. "...So...how'..zzit going...er...damn. I can-not- get this right."

Tifa cocked her head and asked, "What can't you get?"

Stripes nearly jumped a foot. Tifa had never suprised him like that. "Huh! GACK! You heard! How much d-digi hear?"

Not only was Stripes too good at slang...he STANK. T stayed back a little. "Not much... I didn't hear much...Just...you were practicing conversation?"

"Um...yeah. That is..tha'szit."

Tifa just couldn't get used to Stripes trying to speak in slang. he wished he'd stop.  
It bugged her, but if he wanted to do it, she may as well be of a little help to him. "Maybe you need to practice with another person. It'll come more naturally then."

Stripes brightened up like a sparkler. "Really? Wait...you aren't going to try and pry into why I'm doing--never mind. Thank you."

Tifa cocked an interested eyebrow, but kept herself from prying. "OKay, let's see... 'How're you, Stripes?'"

Stripes looked through his notes. He kept notes. On slang. "Ahhh...O-Kay. How's it "hangin'" with you? Tifa?"

Dear Lord, he was terrible.  
"Not bad. 'How's buisness?'"

"'Oh, it's all right. Only had a few customers today, but I can only take so many at a time, you--ya know?' Gawd, I just -cannot- do this!"

"Why d'you say that? You're doing just fine, Stripes. Say, why DO you want to learn slang, anyway? I like the way you sound normally a lot better."

"To fit in with the boys at--"

"Ed's?" Tifa gave Stripes a little disgusted look.

Stripes sat up straight. "Yesh."

"Wh? They're all a bunch of slobbering drunks!"

"All of them seem to be my customers. I want to blend in so they're more comfortable with me. If I sound too high above them, they won't like me, and I can't have ice running through my veins if I want to run a successful, honest business. D'you understand?"

"I gotcha...but your slang, when you try to learn it like that, it's just so damn practiced that it sounds phony. I think you should just spend a little more time with them. You'll develop your own speech patterns by yourself eventually."

Stripes blinked. That was one he'd never heard before.Tifa knew Stripes didn't want her to pry, but couldn't resist. "Where were you before you came here, by the way?"

Stripes fidgeted. "Uhhmmerrr...uh...I used to...be a...teacher in Midgar until three years ago. How long dyou spoze it would take to assimilate me?"

"Oh, I guess that explains it... I can't imagine quitting a teaching job to be a tattoo artist though. And look, you just did "dyou spoze" on your own. It shouldn't take too long if ya keep hanging around Reno, heh."

"Well, Midgar got pretty trashed. I wasn't staying there. Plus, a lot of my students were always telling me to go become a tattoo artist since that's really what I wanted to do instead of teach.Yeah. Reno, he's a nice boy. I almost trust him."

Reno must not have been younger than him by five years.

"Hmm...hey, what did you teach?"

"I taught biology..." Stripes said absently.

"Biology? That's funny. I had you pegged as more of a... An english teacher."

Stripes chuckled. "Yeah, well...I dabbled in a little of both."

Tifa smiled. She was finally getting to know a little bit about him. She looked at the stripes on his arm. "What about art? Did you ever teach that?"

"No," Stripes shook his head vehemently. "Art teachers are the most wretched creatures on the planet. They try to teach people the styles of artists before forcefully, fail in doing so and wonder what went wrong. They're constantly bombarded with people who don't appreciate what they do. My self esteem isn't the best, so I don't think I could take that."

Tifa gasped apologetically. "Oh! I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."

"Offend me? No, I'm not offended. I'm actually surprised and kind of flattered that you'd think I'm that strong a person..."

"Well, you do seem strong. And determined to learn slang." Tifa winked at him jokingly.  
Stripes smiled and brushed his shaggy bangs out of his sunglasses. "So...do you think YOU'RE strong enough to face Cloud?"

"...Eventually. I need a little more time."

Stripes sighed exhaustedly. "All right. Just don't get too cozy. You'll have to face him someday soon, you know."

"I know... But I haven't been this... "un-unhappy" for a while."

"Oh?" Stripes gave Tifa a concerned look.

"Forget it..."

Barret nearly shot down Cloud's office door. "Open up, ya goddamn lily-white sunnovabitch!"

Reeve was trying unsuccessfully to hold Barret back. "Barret, please! I-I don't want him to get mad at us!"

Barret flared his nostrils at Reeve. "Gawd, you white people's so YELLOW! Dis is da fifth advuhtizing campaign he's shot down because you too chickenhearted to stand up to da foo! If he don' open up dis goddamn do', I'm gunna shoot HIM down, suckah!"

Reeve looked like a child tugging at his mother's skirt. "PLEASE, Barret! Let it go!"  
"One mo' word out yo goddamn mouth an I'm gunna bus' you a new--"

Cloud opened his office door and glared at Barret. He had bags under his eyes and stank of liquor. "Yes, Mister Wallace, can I help you with something?"

Barret wasn't fazed. "You reject one mo' of mah advuhtahzin plans and I'm gonna give you a goddamn anal pore in yo goddamn spiky head!"

"FINE! You can HAVE your stupid little advertizing plan! I'm made of money! Here, go start it!" Cloud exploded, throwing a bag of gil at Barret's forehead and stomping away.

"Dayum...he got somethin' wrong in his head..."

Reeve peeked out from under the chair he had dove for cover. "He's been like this ever since Tifa left..."

"Dammit, those lousy sunnovabitch Turks is all goddamn morons! They couldn't find a duck if dey was sittin' onnit!"

A sob was heard from within Cloud's office.

Reeve perked his ears. "Barret, did you hear that...?"

"Hear what, I din' hear nuffin, foo..."

Reeve hushed him and pointed into the office.

"Eeeee..."

"Yo, who's in there?" Barret asked in his most sensitive tone of voice.

Reeve looked out at Yuffie's desk. They both noticed she hadn't been there. "...Yuffie?"

Barret shoved him into Cloud's office. "Why you always gotta be so damn dramatic about things! Yuffie, dat you, sweet thayng?"

"AAAAAAAAaaaahho-ho-hooooohh...!"

Reeve and Barret rushed up to Cloud's desk, looking for Yuffie, but she didn't seem to be anywhere.

Something tugged at Reeve's pantleg and he jumped onto Barret's head.

Yuffie, battered and bruised, with torn clothes, had been kicked under Cloud's desk.


	5. Chapter 5

The next day, Elena met up with the rest of her fellow Turks in the Turk Lounge. Vincent was sober, for once, so she rushed up to him and hugged him. "Vinnie! Howya feelin' today, hon?"

Vincent gave her a plastic smile. "Same as always!" he said, then shrugged her off, almost into the wall.

Elena blinked as she slumped down into a chair.

Rude's blank expression remained unchanged.

Reno looked at her apologetically for a moment, then turned to his mentor. "So, boss, have you found any leads as to where Tifa might be?"

Vincent shook his head. "We've been mucking around in Ed's for the past week. I think it's time we dug ourselves out of that rut for once. Does anybody have ANY idea where she might be?"

Rude remained silent.  
Elena shook her head dumbly.  
Reno cowered.

Vincent thought a while. "Just how many Turks do we have spread out over the city?"  
Rude held up four fingers.

"And how many Turks ARE there?"

"One thousand," Rude said calmly.

Reno gasped. "He SPEAKS!"

Vincent gave a belittling look to the both of them. "Then why aren't there a thousand Turks on patrol!"

Reno jumped.

Elena scrambled for the Turk P.A. System and Rude followed her. A look from Vincent and Reno was gone, as well. 

So there was Vincent Valentine, alone in a room for the first time in a year. It was a creepy feeling for him. There hadn't been a moment alone for him since he had started posing for magazine pictures. And why shouldn't he be posing? He was the sexiest guy in all the world. And he knew it. 

He wondered where his adoring fans were.

Probably all asleep at this hour.

Seven A.M. on a weekend was too early for a fangirl to be up, he figured.

Vincent stared at the walls of the Turk Lounge, waiting for them to burst with young teenage girls. He smiled seductively at that thought and adjusted his tie for the occassion. 

The walls didn't burst, though.  
The room got cold.  
Very cold.  
He felt an ice cold needle touch his back and froze.  
An ethereal voice spoke in his ear. Viiiiiinceeeeeeeent...

He turned around with his gun aimed at the air and there was girlish laughter flitting through the air. "W-who's there!"

The cold wind seemed to penetrate Vincent's body and the faint shape of a girl in a pink dress only just reaching maturity flickered before him. Vincent squinted. "Aeris?"

Viiiiincennnt... she called in her childlike voice.

Another ethereal voice penetrated the air. This one was more mature and tired-sounding. My love...

The unseen one's voice bounced off the walls of the Turk Lounge, and cold swirled in his ears for a few seconds. The second spectre showed herself, her curly brown hair parted harshly in the middle, her purple t-shirt contrasting highly with her stark white lab coat.

Vincent blinked. "Lucrecia...?"

Aeris giggled girlishly as Lucrecia raised her arms and embraced her old flame. My love...

Vincent stood back and gulped. Had she seen what he did last night?

Aeris' giggling raised to a shrill cackle and he broke out in a cold sweat. The misty Lucrecia stepped gracefully forward. Do not be afraid, my love. We have come to warn you...

"Warn me!" Vincent squeaked. He hadn't expected her to come back. His whole basis of being alive now was that he was over Lucrecia.

Lucrecia threw her ghastly form up against the squirming Valentine. He has come back...

"W-w-who?"

Aeris giggled and sang, He who wronged you seeks the right, to come and take his soul one night...

Vincent was completely confused. "What!"

Lucrecia threw a dirty look at Aeris. Ignore the sprout. She's lost her head.

I ain't lost my head! It's what happens when you're dead...in the head, Fred! Heehehehehehaaahaa!

Vincent was sweating bullets by now.

Lucrecia pushed her translucent face into Vincent's eyes. She caressed his face seductively. My only love...who delivered me from a life of stagnation...be careful whom you cross paths with...you must not let him distract you...

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Lu. I havva job to d--"

Vincent had never been romanced by a ghost before. They could be pretty forceful when they wanted to be. Lucrecia had him on the floor in less than a minute. Aeris floated up to the ceiling and cackled dementedly the entire time, tweeting away.

I disconnect the dots...  
While you make little tots,  
You little sots...  
There's an apple sauce of Mott's  
That likes to sing and spot  
On the dot  
Of the sot...sot sotty sop sot...you snots!  
With mommy's love she has forgot...  
Daddy comes back, his soul a-rot  
And will not  
Rest.

Lucrecia threw her ghostly shoe gracefully at the younger ghost. You little strumpet, have you no respect for grace!

Aeris cackled dementedly and disappeared into the ceiling. They come! They come!

Vincent looked at Lucrecia like a frightened emu.

I must leave you now...I can only see you when you are alone.

"Who are you trying to warn me about!"

Lucrecia put a finger to her lips and dissolved as she shushed him.

Reno came running into the room. "Hey, boss, we got all the Turks roaming the city now! Boss?"

Vincent was still on the floor.

Elena came into the room, followed by Rude. "...Sir?" she asked.

Vincent sat up, very spooked. He looked at his comrades.

Reno gave a pathetic little "Heh," and rubbed his head.

Rude's eyebrows knotted.

Elena gasped and gave him a disgusted look.

Vincent looked at the three of them. "What's with you guys?"

"Umm...sir...there's some..." Reno pointed at his face.

Elena stormed off in a huff.  
Rude's expression didn't change.  
Vincent stepped a little closer to Rude and used the reflection in his sunglasses as a mirror.

He had lipstick all over his face.

Curtains ruffle.  
Curtains ruffle in the.  
Curtains ruffle in the spring wind.

Number 20 was an old woman. She got a tattoo of Dio on her left mammary gland. It was one of the more...interesting customers Stripes had to deal with. Tifa stayed to watch the whole thing, though. The old woman was hysterical. She and Stripes had a conversation about Les Miserables. Stripes' favorite character was Javert. The old woman was completely infatuated with the actor that played Enjrolas. She couldn't even remember his name, but she liked him just the same. She considered getting a tattoo of him on her other gland, but shortage of money kept her from that.

It definately unnerved Stripes, this old hag talking about tackling Dio and making love to him in the Gondola, but Tifa found it quite amusing. It was better than that fat old man gushing over Scarlet. 

Once the old woman was gone, Tifa laughed her head off while Stripes marched into his bathtub fully clothed and yanked the shower curtain closed.

"I have NEVER felt so unclean in my entire LIFE!"

Tifa was still cackling.

"Shut up! Hey, under the sink is a bottle of bleach, could you chuck it in here?"

Tifa fished out the bottle of bleach and handed it to Stripes. "You shower with your clothes on?"

"TODAY I do!" he shrieked. Tifa heard him open the bottle and dump the entire thing on his head.

"Stripes, that's not very wise. You wanna melt those sunglasses?"

Stripes' wet forearm poked out and pointed to his sunglasses, magically balanced on the edge of the tub.

Tifa was about to walk out, when he screamed. "Gaaaaaaaah! Owww...stupid scars!"

She heard the water turn on and stepped out. Stripes had a mysterious set of parallel scars on the right side of his face that looked like some sort of beast had attacked him. They started at his cheekbone on a seventeen degree angle running toward his ear, but stopped just behind his jawline. The three parallel scars continued not as severely onto his shoulder. They didn't seem much more than four years old at the most. He might have gotten caught under a beam or something when Meteor landed on Midgar, but Tifa couldn't remember any kind of beam that fell on people at a seventeen degree angle. Stripes may have gotten into a fight with one of ShinRa's hybrid panthers or something like that.

She made a point to ask him once he got out of the shower.

God is a number you can't count to.

After about an hour of scrubbing and screaming, Stripes emerged from the shower a blonde man. Tifa almost didn't recognize him if it weren't for his sunglasses. 

"Well...that's ONE way to get your hair bleached, I guess," she said.

"There's another way to do it?" Stripes asked.

"Yeah. S' called getting your hair lightened."

"Bleach is bleach, whether it's in a dinky little tube or you dunk it on your head."

Tifa looked at Stripes for a while. It looked kind of wrong with him having blonde hair. "Are you gunna dye it back?"

"Nope. I like it like this, actually," Stripes the fashion expert said, turning to look at his face in the mirror.

"Ugh...fine."

"Why? What color would YOU want it to be?"

"Not blonde. You're too old for that."

"It'll grow out by the time we go see Cloud."

"Sounds like you're up for seeing him much more than I am," she said, looking down.

"That's because you're a total wussy girl, you a--"

Tifa was about to reply to his banter, but the door rang open. A familiar voice called up.

"Hello?"

It was Cloud!

Tifa panicked and dove into Stripes' bedroom, while Stripes himself stuffed himself into a tight black turtleneck, put a towel on his head, put a gigantic band-aid over his scar, took off his sunglasses and ran downstairs as femininely as he possibly could.

"Thorry, thir," Stripes said with a comical lisp, "I was JUTHT jumping out of the shower! Hope you don't mind! Hee hee..." he giggled, putting his slender hand to his face and biting his index finger, winking in Cloud's general direction.

Cloud looked startled and took a step back. He'd never met a flitty tattoo artist before. "Uh...miss...SIR! I mean, sir, sir, you're the tattoo guy, right?"

(Good. I've scared him shitless,) Stripes thought.

"Hmm? OH! You're a cuthtomer? Wait...there'th...thomething familiar about you," Thtripeth thaid, getting back from behind the dethk and thircling Cloud, looking him over. "Wait...I know who you ARE! YOU'RE that guy! You're Prethident of the ShinRa corporation, aren't you?"

"AVALANCE, ma'a--sir. I-i-it's AVALANCHE, not ShinRa."

Stripes cocked his head. "Tsk. AVALANCHE, ShinRa, thame thing. Only thing different ith the people running the sho-- OH, I'm THORRY, Mithter Thtrife, I shouldn't have thaid that in front of you!" he said, fanning himself with his hands. "Ohh...I'm so embarrathed! Is my fathe all red?"

Cloud gave Stripes a scared look and shook his head. "N-nno, sir--ma'am! Ma'am, no sir! Sir...I uh...anyway...does that phosphorescent ink you have in some of your designs show up in plain light?"

"Huh? Oh! No, thir, not unleth the thun'th going down, no. Why, you wanna get a tattoo people can only thee in a black light?"

"OKay...then I want one of those," he said in a low voice, "on top of a real-color one."

Stripes blinked. "OKay, thir...thith way."

Stripes showed him upstairs and sat him in his tatooing room, forbidding him to move. He hoped that the decor and messiness of it didn't lead Cloud to suspect anything of the tattoo artist except that he was quite fruity. Stripes went into his bedroom and closed the door.

"Tifa!" he called in a whispered rasp.

"Under the bed!" she rasped back.

"Cloud's getting a tattoo. Stay in this room, and whatever you do, don't make a sound!"

"Right."

Stripes slipped out of his room, making sure to lock the door behind him. He skipped audibly into the bathroom and put the towel around his shoulders, putting his sunglasses back on and rummaging through the little pile of makeup Tifa had been collecting. With a sigh, he took off his sunglasses and looked in the mirror, his face forming into a horrible scowl. Stripes turned away from the mirror as quickly as he could and put a hand over his eyes. (No. There's no time to worry about that now. There's no time.) He turned back around and tried to remember what he had learned in his childhood in Wutai about Kabuki makeup, but he didn't have time, so he just exaggerated his eyelashes with the first black thing he could find and dove into his other supply room for some glitter. 

Cloud was getting a little uneasy in his seat.

"Um...person, could you hurry up, please?"

"Jutht a moment!" Stripes sang.

Another minute passed, and Stripes came into the room all but dripping in blue glitter.

"Thorry I took tho long, thweetneth! I just COULDN'T find that thtupid phothphorethent thuff!" he said with a hand flip.

"Yeah...okay...I'd like to get just a classic heart-and-ribbon thing on my shoulder."

Tifa was wedged up against the door, trying to hear every word Cloud said.

"Any particular name on it or anything?"

"Yes...'Tifa'...please, sir...ma'am...gaw, whatever..."

Tifa's jaw dropped. (So...he really DOES love me?)

Stripes lowered his voice thereafter. He knew she was listening in. "And what d'you want in the phosphorescent thtuff?"

Cloud lowered his voice, too. He could sense that SOMEBODY was listening to him, just not sure who. "Aeris...in capital letters, across the whole thing, double the heighth of the ribbon."

Stripes sighed and smiled sadly, glad that Tifa couldn't have heard that. "Okay, hon. If you'll jutht bare your shoulder for me, I can thtart."

Cloud tried futilely to roll up the sleeve of his blazer.

"Honey, you gotta take the blather off..."

Cloud gave him a panicked look. "Y-you're not gunna -try- anything, are you?"

Stripes formed his mouth into an O and put his fingertips on his clavicles. "Who, ME? Never, Prethident Thtrife!"

"O-oh-kay," Cloud said shakily, shrugging off his blazer and throwing it on the floor.

Stripes pretended to sneeze, and half of the glitter found its way into Cloud's hair as he was getting rid of his filthy buttoned shirt. It had been almost two weeks since he had washed himself and he smelled awful. Stripes frowned silently at him in disgust when his back was turned. "Just the heart with the ribbon and Tifa on it, I don't wanna be charged extra for doodles, understand?" he said forcefully.

"Perfectly, thir," Stripes said with a plastic smile and began to rub away the filth on Cloud's shoulder with a rubbing-alchohol cottonball.

KILL THE PIG. CUT HER THROAT. SPILL HER BLOOD.

"Finished!" Stripes sang, holding a black light and a mirror up for Cloud to see his shoulder. Stripes put a bandage over the new tattoo, which was starting to bleed a little. "Now, don't take the bandage off for a week or tho. And try to take a shower or THOMETHING. Tsk."

Cloud nodded as he put his shirt and blazer on gingerly and followed Stripes downstairs. He looked at the guestbook and picked up the pen to sign in slot number 21. Stripes nearly closed the thing on his hand and shook his head. "Ah-ah ahh! That'th for paying cuthtomerth only!"

"Really? I thought you'd want the publicity of having my name in your guestbook."

"Oh, I have other platheth for autographth!" Stripes said, getting out a pack of yellow stickies. "Sign the thtikie!"

"You sure I shouldn't pay?"

"Oh, it'th no bother."

Cloud signed it, thanked him for not charging him and left, trailing bits of glitter out the door.

Stripes sighed and ran back upstairs, grabbing for his sunglasses in the bathroom, but he was blocked by Tifa. "What was THAT about?"

"What? The disguise? Well...I couldn't pass myself off as a very good woman, now could I?"

"I'll kill you if you've mutilated my eyeliner, Thtripeth," she said with a banterous hand-flip.

Stripes went into the bathroom, washed his face off and put his sunglasses back on. "I've changed my mind, Miss Lockheart. I'm not going to go with you to see Cloud."

"Strife."

"Pardon?"

Tifa smiled. "My name is Tifa Strife."

Stripes looked at her, but didn't say anything.

He gave her a smile, pained at first, but then happy, his fist crushing the yellow stickie with Cloud's autograph on it. 


	6. Chapter 6

It didn't take Tifa two days more to get ready to go back home. Stripes went on the roof as it began to rain, practicing his 'rusted old passion,' martial arts.

Tifa couldn't help but feel sorry for him. After all, she thought he had a little bit of a crush on her. She grabbed an umbrella and watched him kick at the air for about ten minutes.

"Stripes?" she yelled through the rain.

Stripes didn't hear her. He punched at the air. He would have rather be punching himself, though.

(Why won't you tell her, you heartless bastard?) he thought to himself.

(Because she needs to learn this. It's better someone she knows teach her this than somebody else.)

(Teach her what? To turn her heart to stone? Or are you hoping she'll come crying back into your arms, you vile, pretentious, twisted little man!)

Stripes became angrier and angrier with each kick to the air.

But was it anger?

He was also starting to cry.

"Stripes!" Tifa called again.

"YES?" Stripes yelled back, louder than he thought he sounded.

"I'm ready now!"

"Go, then!"

"In the rain?"

"Well, you just said you were going to go, weren't you?"

"Yes I did, but--"

"Don't go in the rain," Stripes said and stopped kicking the air. "You'll catch pneumonia...and..." he trailed off.

"Die?"

"Don't," Stripes said softly, too softly for her to hear him.

"Huh?"

Stripes kicked the air again. "If you die, I'll kill you!"

Tifa laughed uneasily.

Silence ensued, except for the sound of the rain.

Tifa broke it with, "If I ever come back, you had better dye your hair some other color..."

Stripes laughed.

"Promise me!"

"Hahahaha! I promise, Tifa."

Tifa walked her umbrella up to shield Stripes. It was a rather big umbrella. Had a diameter of 6 feet, it did. "Don't you die on me either."

Stripes sighed and smiled. He shook his head.

"When you get married, invite us to your wedding, okay? And I want to see your kids, too."

"I've...been married...and back. And I had a son...but not anymore."

Tifa gasped. "Ohh! Man, I did it again...I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to pry!"

Stripes shook his head and raised his hand. "No, no...don't be sorry. It's all right."

"How did you and your wife...?"

Stripes sighed. "She passed when she gave birth to my son. She was another teacher, much too much like myself. She wasn't the sturdiest of women...in either respect."

Tifa decided not to inquire further about his wife. "And your son...?"

"He was...he was the brightest boy. The greatest kid in the world. He had everyone he knew in his hands, begging for him to recognize them as someone worthy of his friendship or esteem...everyone."

"Everyone?"

"Except for me, of course. But what could I do? His popularity went to his head. He wouldn't be seen with his nerdy excuse of a father. All I ever told him was what and what not to do...I never told him I loved him...I never gave him any encouragement, or told him I was proud of everything he ever did, everything he had ever become. I was never able to. I-I wasn't even in the area when he died."

"How did he--?"

"He and another kid were...playing in a Mako Reactor. They got into a fight and the other kid shoved him in."

Tifa's heart skipped a beat.

I hate ShinRa...  
I hate Mako Reactors...  
I HATE THEM ALL!

Tifa shook her head.

"My...father was killed in a Mako Reactor..." she said.

Stripes gasped as if he had been stabbed.

(SEDUCER! SWINDLER! How DARE you even feel you have the right to speak to this girl!)

"Stripes?"

"I'm sorry!"

"Sorry?"

(Sorry? You're sorry? Oh, look. Pooor little Professor Hojo is sorry for the death of Tifa's father, WHICH HE INADVERTANTLY CAUSED!)

"Stripes, Stripes, are you okay? You're shaking!"

(Snivelling parasite, what gives you the right to live while her father lies dead ten years and counting? What would she say if you told her that? She wouldn't be trying to help you now, you hypocritanical sack of bones!)

Tifa slapped him. "STRIPES! Snap out of it!"

(Pain! Yes, pain is what you deserve, Hojo, PAIN! Agony, writhing, eternal, burning PAIN!)

"STRIPES!"

Stripes regained some of his composure and mumbled, "Hate me..."

"What did you say?"

"Hit me again, Tifa."

"What?"

The tattoo artist stepped out of the protective circle of the umbrella.

"I said HIT ME!"  
"HIT ME!"  
"IT ME!"  
"T ME!"  
"ME!"  
"E!"  
"!"

The sound rebounded off the walls of the taller buildings. People turned on their lights and looked out their windows to see who it was that was yelling. Stripes fell to his knees, choking back tears. (You fiend...you monster...alligator tears, all of them! You know you are not sorry for what you did...what gives you the right to cry? What!)

I HATE THEM ALL!

Reno thought he heard something.

He couldn't tell Vincent. He was too busy with his female friends.

Rude and Elena were sitting quite close to him, though.

The oldest of the Turks was sipping his can of :P Cherry through a ridiculously long curly straw. The most feminine of the Turks was spinning a quarter around with her finger, waiting for the man perpetually on the pinball machine to finish his game.

Reno got up from his brown-nosing-begotten seat next to Vincent and put his head down next to Rude's. "I think I heard some yelling outside," he whispered.

"I'm sorry, Reno. I don't feel the same way about you," Rude answered quite audibly and went back to sipping his :P beer.

Elena giggled a stinging and whole-hearted giggle.

"Rude, don't do this to me now, man. This is important! I think I heard someone scream."

"Why don't you ask your -new- boyfriend? I'm sure he's up for it."

"Ruude!"

Rude turned his way and frowned at him. "You've given up your dignity to impress Sir Saint Valentine there. This is your chance to regain it, I think. Go do it yourself."

Reno turned desperately towards Elena, who snubbed her nose at him. "I'm with Rude."

The Turk with hair of fire-engine red slapped his head exaspiratedly and stumbled out the door of the bar, where he heard more screaming from above.

"Calm DOWN, Stripes! I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"Stripes?" Reno asked himself. "Who's he talking t--"

"WHY WON'T YOU HIT ME!"

"Shit, that IS Stripes!" Reno cursed and ran for his shop.

"Because you're my friend and you're obviously in some kind of pain right now. Was it something I said?" Tifa tried.

"Hit me or leave me ALONE! D'you hear!"

"Stripes, you took me in when I probably would have starved and died on the str--"

"I regret ever doing that!"

Tifa was stunned. "What!"

"Y-you heard me, Tifa Lockheart! I wish I never took you in!"

"Stripes, you can't mean tha--"

"FREEZE!" Reno snapped, pointing his gun at Tifa.

Tifa froze and put her hands up.

"Don't hurt her, Reno. She's guilty of no crime except for loving the loveless."

Neither of the slightly younger people understood Stripes, but Reno put his gun down. "Why didn't you tell us Tifa was here, Stripes?"

"Because she doesn't deserve to be thrown back to someone as corrupt as Strife...but I'm no better than he is, so take her out of my sight! I don't ever want to see her again!"

"Stripes!" Tifa yipped.

Reno hand-cuffed her and picked up her umbrella. "Stripes...I can't arrest you."

Stripes looked up at him so Reno could plainly see his piercing light-grey eyes. "Then you are as corrupt as he whom you serve...but who am I to talk of corruption! Never mind...go, Reno."

"But..."

"I SAID GO!"

Reno went, dragging Tifa with him.

Tifa looked back at Stripes, who stared after her in the rain, his eyes like two hailstones. Everything he had told her, he didn't mean. His face betrayed him. His expression screamed 'I LOVE YOU!' all over it. Tifa felt sorry for him.

After they'd gone, Stripes stood up and watched Tifa and Reno enter Ed's, and come out accompanied by Vincent, Rude and Elena. Stripes scowled down at the leader of the Turks. He was doing it again...removing him of the person he cared about most.

Tifa struggled.

At least this time, it wasn't voluntary.

Tifa looked up and saw him on the roof. She gave him a piteous look. It screamed 'WHAT DO YOU MEAN?' He wanted to cry.

He put his hand over his mouth and continued to look down at her. Tifa opened her mouth and shouted: "STRIPES!...--" and nothing else came.

Cloud was almost glad to see Tifa returned to him, but not glad enough not to scold her.

He hardly got the chance, though. She ran up and hugged him before he could say a thing.

"Oh, Cloud! I've missed you so much!"

"Why? -You- were the one who ran away!"

"And with good reason, too. I'm sick and tired of you bossing me around, Cloud! From now on, -I'm- going to be the boss of me. Not you!"

"What kind of #$ed up self-help clinic did you stumble into?"

Tifa smirked. "The best kind."

Reno, Rude and Elena cringed, fearing that she'd give Stripes away, but she didn't. "Good LORD, you stink! INTO THE BATHTUB!"

Tifa dragged Cloud's sorry hide away by the arm and the three Turks let out breaths they hadn't known they were holding until they let them out. Rude smiled at Reno and shook his hand. "You going to be less of an ass now?"

Reno nodded confidently. "Vincent has LOST a brown-noser!"

The two drinking companions were reunited at last, and walked off into the Turk's Lounge, leaving Elena alone in Cloud's office.

Hee hee hee hee...

The room got cold and Elena hugged herself. Junonian weather was rather unpredictable: a blizzard could spring up in the middle of the summer and it'd be normal. Elena decided to follow her compatriots to the lounge, but as she neared the double doors to the office, they seemed to look as if they were closing on her. 

(Strange...)

She ran back to Cloud's desk, at the far end of the office and looked at the doors.

They were wide open.

Elena closed her eyes and stepped ten paces toward the doors.

The doors were 1/5 closed.

Elena walked forward until she was no more than half a foot away from the doors.

There was less than an inch of space between them.

And something else...  
Something cold...  
Something glowing blue.

Elena held up her right index finger and poked it through the space between the doors.

(It feels like ice!)

She attempted to pull her finger back, but it was stuck.

Not between the doors, but on the glowing blue thing.

Elena was starting to get scared. She yanked at it, but it wouldn't come off.

The doors creaked open, revealing the form of an ethereal lady, garbed in something translucent and white, with long blonde curly hair parted severely in the middle. She was holding onto Elena's forefinger with her own bony thumb and forefinger.

Not only bony...  
MADE of bone...  
Bone hand...  
Bone wrist...  
Bone arm...  
Bone shoulders and ribs...  
Bone neck...  
Bone head!  
The ethereal blue color melted away...

The woman's hair changed from blonde to brown...

The white tissue paper she wore melted into a bloodstained labcoat...

And Elena stared like a deer in traffic into the eyeless skull of Lucrecia's ghost.

Lucrecia squeezed Elena's finger harder until she yelped in pain.

"Let me GO!"

Lucrecia's ghost let out a shrill cry that sounded more like a crow than a woman and squeezed harder. Elena was on the verge of tears.

"AAAAAAI! PLEASE! Let me go! W-w-what have I done to you!"

Lucrecia's ghost melted into a fuzzy blue, wide-mouthed head as she laughed. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You think you can -take- him from me! He belongs to me!

"I-I-I don't understand!" Elena shreiked, finally getting her finger back.

Another ghostly laugh was heard behind Elena.

At Cloud's desk, there formed a pinkish cloud. Hehehehe...comrade, it seems you got to little tiny-head too late! Vincent she would rather be one to berate than mate!

Lucrecia's ghost made an inhuman gutteral sound similar to that of a large bear vomitting up a large meal. Curse ye who live! Thou art never alone!

Elena had balled herself up on the floor, not understanding a thing being said by the two ghosts for fright.

What soft, as thou oft, you have turned the brain of fair Elena off!

Go to your business, brainless child-wench! I have some of my own now. I am have done here!

With that, Lucrecia's ghost disappeared.

Aeris' ghost floated about Elena's balled form sympathetically, then floated erratically through the door Tifa and Cloud had gone through.

Tifa had never thought she would enjoy taking a bath with Cloud so much. Their tub was big enough to not get impaled or prodded by faucets and such. And the shower curtains were fireproof so that if one of the candles blew the wrong way, it wouldn't catch on fire and suffocate them both to death in the tub. 

Cloud was giving her a backrub in the nice, tranquil, warm water, when she suddenly felt something like a cold hand reach up from under her stomach. She panicked and sat up in the water. "Cloud, did you just get real cold?"

Cloud blinked, oblivious.

Until he saw a faint blue glow behind Tifa.

Sitting on a ledge adjacent to the wall, lack-of-dressed proper for a bath, sat Aeris' ghost.

Cloud knew only he could see her. She and he had had multiple conversations while Tifa was standing right in front of them, mostly made comical to him by her poking and pulling her hair and sticking her ethereal hand through Tifa's ears. Cloud smiled as she sat down in the water in the exact space Tifa occupied. The water at the edge of the tub began to form small ice crystals and Tifa began to shiver.

"Cloud, it's getting really COLD in here!"

Cloud Strife wrapped his arms around his wife and his lover at the same time and said to her, "Don't worry, baby. I'll keep you warm."

"Wait, Cloud, wait! We shouldn't do this in here, Cloud, I'm scared. Cloud! CLOUD!"

"What have I done?" Stripes asked himself as the sun rose. He had spent the rainy night on the roof. "All of this...being alive again, JENOVA, it was a waste..." he whispered to himself, his eyes closing under the heavy weight of sleep. "...a waste..."

An image of a jagged-looking, yet haggard and geekish old Wutaian man showed on a gigantic screen in front of his eyes, filling his field of vision.

The man's mouth was drawn back in a horrible sneer.

His eyes blazed with hatred.

"P R O F E S S O R . . ." the adjudicator of the entire world intoned, "YOUR CRIMES ARE UNFORGIVABLE. YET YOU LIVE, TRYING TO PROVE US WRONG. GIVE UP THY FUTILE CAUSE AND ACCEPT HELL LIKE THOU SHOULDST. YOU HAVE ONLY COMPOUNDED YOUR GUILT WITH HYPOCRASY."

Stripes stood up, black-haired, in glasses and a lab coat, glad to tear his eyes away from the horrid image of himself they kept showing him. He faced the adjudicator of the entire world joylessly. It was himself inverted. White hair, dark skin, hair neatly groomed with a goatee. He wore the black garb of a priest proudly, and faced Stripes upside down. Stripes remembered the time when he thought himself the adjudicator of the entire world: all his life up until the point he died. Then he had been taught something--the adjudicator of the entire world was everyone but himself. 

"SPEAK!"

"i never said i was going to prove anyone wrong. i set out to try and correct some of the catastrophic mistakes i've made!"

"JEAN VALJEAN IS NOTHING NOW! ANOTHER STORY HAS BEGUN!"

"that's not true! i have not shed my past self and started anew! i have--"

"YOU HAVE BECOME INFATUATED WITH A WOMAN YOU KNOW IS SOMEONE ELSE'S PROPERTY. YOU HAVE ENDEARED YOURSELF TO PEOPLE. THEY WOULD CRY IF YOU DIED. THEY WOULD COME TO YOUR FUNERAL! THEY WOULD VISIT YOUR GRAVE!"

"that was not my intent!"

"STRIPES IS NOT HOJO. ALL YOU HAVE NOW IS A DIFFERENT LIFE IN WHICH TO DO THE SAME THINGS DIFFERENTLY. TO DO THINGS WORSE. 

HOJO: USE A GIRL. STRIPES: SPOIL A GIRL.   
HOJO: CREATE A BELOVED PUBLIC ICON. STRIPES: RUIN A BELOVED PUBLIC ICON.  
HOJO: BUILD A LIFE-SUPPORTING CORPORATION. STRIPES: TOPPLE A LIFE-SUPPORTING CORPORATION."

"i have tried to give Tifa advice on how to actually live her life. it is not enough for a person to just be alive like that."

"YOU HAVE TURNED HER INTO A WILLFUL AND CONTROLLING INDIVIDUAL!"

"better willful and controlling than meek and abused!"

"HOW DARE YOU TRY TO JUDGE! IT IS MY JOB TO JUDGE SUCH THINGS!"

"i would have given the useful truths i have learned in death to anyone."

"YOU HAVE SEEN YOURSELF IN DEATH AND YOU HAVE RELISHED IN EVERY MINUTE OF IT."

"and two plus two equals five! i get it!"

"DO NOT QUESTION THE WILL OF THE ADJUDICATOR OF THE ENTIRE WORLD!"

"there IS no such animal!"

The adjudicator of the entire world grabbed Stripes by the head and set him in front of the picture of himself sneering. "WHO IS THIS?"

"that is me."

"THIS IS YOU."

"WHEN DID YOU SNEER LIKE THIS?"

"when i shot Vincent."

"WHEN YOU SHOT VINCENT."

"HOW OLD ARE YOU IN THIS?"

"this picture shows me at age fifty-nine."

"THIS PICTURE SHOWS YOU AT AGE FIFTY-NINE."

"HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU SHOT VINCENT?"

"i was twenty-six." 

"YOU WERE TWENTY-SIX."

"IF YOU MADE THIS SNEER WHEN YOU WERE TWENTY-SIX AND IT SHOWS YOU AT FIFTY-NINE, WHAT DOES IT MEAN?"

"it is a manifestation of a picture of my life: all hatred. all vengence. no redeeming qualities whatsoever."

"IT IS A MANIFESTATION OF A PICTURE OF YOUR LIFE: ALL HATRED. ALL VENGENCE. NO REDEEMING QUALITIES WHATSOEVER."

"WHY DO YOU DENY YOURSELF?"

"what?"

Stripes was pulled up by his bangs.

"WHY DO YOU DENY YOURSELF!"

"agh!"

"WHY DO YOU DENY YOURSELF!"

"i hate myself!"

"WHY!"

"because hate for others blinded me against anything i may have done right in the world. now that i am no longer blind, i hate myself for what i have done!"

"REPENTANCE?"

"you may call it that."

"YOU ARE NOT HOJO."

"i have the ability to change with time! i am a human being! perspectives change, opinions change! people change!"

"HOJO IS NO HUMAN BEING. HE IS A MONSTER, DRIVEN BY HATE, DRIVEN BY SUFFERING. HIS HEART FROZEN BEYOND THAW BEYOND THE SNOWFIELDS, TAKING ADVANTAGE OF HAVING SPENT TOO MUCH TIME IN THE SUN TO SCRAWL HIS OWN PETTY POETRY IN BLOOD ON THE WALL, HOPING IN HOPELESS HOPES THAT SOME OTHER TWISTED SOUL MAY SPEAK HIS LANGUAGE WRITTEN IN THE RED AND REALIZE THAT MAYBE HIS BLOOD REALLY IS THICKER THAN WATER."

"i have changed!"

"THEN YOU ARE NOT HOJO. HOJO IS THE DEFINITION OF ULTIMATE SUFFERING GIVEN AND TAKEN IN EQUAL MEASURES. A MACHINE BUILT AND RUN ON HATE. MACHINES DO NOT CHANGE."

"enough."

"SPINELESS ANTIPATHY OF VILLIANY."

"enough!"

"YOU DON'T HAVE THE BALLS TO STAND UP AND BE HATED."

"i have gone to Hell for this!"

"THERE IS NO HEAVEN. THERE IS NO HELL. THERE IS ONLY WHAT YOU MAKE OF IT."

"then i AM hojo. this is my Hell. it seems no worse than what i experienced when i was alive. it is all in my head. i lived in my pain, and died in it. or did i die at all? maybe i was just in a coma these past five years, my brain so used to self-hatred that it created this place all by itself..."

"YES..."


	7. Chapter 7

You are alone...

Stripes' eyes twitched as he slept.

I would have thought you'd be alone much earlier...but you took the Stupid One in.

"Tifa, put some coffee on the stove. I'm not awake yet."

Lucrecia's ghost hit Stripes on the head. WAKE UP, HEARTLESS BASTARD!

Stripes just groaned and rolled over.

Frustrated, the ghost snarled and sat down on the couch.

Hojo...

Stripes groaned.

Lucrecia slipped her ice cold hand around his slender waist and ran her fingers down his right leg. Wake up...

Stripes sat up with a start, finding in front of him a face he had come to loathe almost as much as his own. "YOU!"

Lucrecia's ghost drew itself up to look down at him from a high angle.You think I would let you get away with coming back and ruining my love's life?

Stripes blinked. He hadn't seen his wife in thirty-five years. Strangely enough...it was good to see her again. Despite her apparent lack of taste. "What makes you think I've come back for that filth?"

How DARE you speak of the liberator of my soul in such a fashion!

"Because I've seen him recently and he's become a complete asshole. You let a nice-looking boy like him get popular and it goes to his head."

No, not Vincent. Vincent is pure! Vincent is repentant! Vincent is--"

"Posing for teenie-bopper magazines and hanging over women who consider walking to the nearest streetcorner as their commute to work," Stripes said calmly.

Lucrecia became furious. I COULD REND YOU LIMB FROM WORTHLESS LIMB, YOU HEARTLESS, LOVELESS JENOVA-MONGER!

"JENOVA has been purged," he lied.

You POOR baby. That must mean that all your life's work accounts for...oh, NOTHING!

"You can see that I lose sleep over that SO much."

Oh, so you're trying to reform, are you? What a good little tin soldier you'll make.

"What do you want with me, indecisive one?"

We've warned Vincent about you, Aeris and I. Don't think you can win against the side of good!

Hojo took off his sunglasses and stared his ex-ex-wife in the ghastly face. "Who ever said anything about being for or against anything?"

Well, you've certainly given POOR little Tifa back a shining golden wire of confidence...for now. You false, false lair! Too noble to tell her what else you tattooed on her husband's shoulder? You're still lower than dirt.

"At least I'm no longer buried in it."

That's because you've sold your soul to your little JENOVA girlfriend for a new life.

"I TOLD you, JENOVA is dead!"

Oh, well...doesn't matter. Want to know something, 'Stripes'?

"What?"

You've just sent your little girlfriend back into the arms of a rapist.

Stripes stood up, looking away from her. "I know..."

Hahaha...your self-loathing has done more than just yourself in! Ohh, I think I smell a child coming on! Do you have any leftover ancient parasites to feed this one to, Professor? she sneered his former title with distaste.

"It has to be done..."

Hmph. So you play with your little harlot before you defile her yourself...

Stripes narrowed his eyes. "You know love not. You know lust. That is all we both ever knew when we were alive, child..."

Have you gone ALL your life calling everybody else a child?

"Everything from when I hit 45 after, yes. You haven't been shown your life over and over for five years. You wouldn't have learned SQUAT from it because it was so damned short! All you ever cared about was me, once upon a time and that little mimbo!"

Lucrecia scowled and clawed at his face with her etherial hands. You so much as LOOK at Vincent the wrong way and I'll--

Hojo stared at her angrily, feeling another sneer form across his lips. "Do. Your. Worst."

Aha! So the reformed beast ISN'T too kind and gentle to fight back!

Stripes swiped at her uselessly. "Will you leave me the Hell alone!"

Lucrecia sneered. NEVER.

"Even if it IS to save your pretty little fool?"

I will protect him from any harm you may do to him.

"I'm not the only person who can cause him harm, Lucrecia Hojo," Stripes noted with a smile, "and besides, I've changed my mind regarding him."

Lucrecia growled disgustedly and took a step back. Don't you call me that, you monster!

"Why not? I was once as much a part of your life as he was."

I am no part of you, Hojo!

"Ah, yes, but aren't we all a part of all that we've touched?"

I was -never- a part of you, Hojo, Lucrecia sneered imperiously.

"Don't you wish? Even now, I'm still a little part of Vinc- -"

DON'T YOU EVEN SAY HIS NAME!

"You can't go on seeing things in black and white if you're going to interact with the living, Lucrecia."

Lucrecia covered her ears. Don't spoil the only thing precious left to me!

Stripes scowled. "If it makes you feel any better, my plans have changed for that accursed Turk."

Lucrecia looked up cluelessly.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten your precious Vincent Valentine! I never intended for his head to roll as a result of this ordeal." Stripes laughed.

The head to roll will be yours if you so much as touch the father of my child!

"You dare..."

HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Go ahead! Slap me, Hojo! Slap me! I've escaped you!

Stripes punched the space Lucrecia's ghost occupied and his fist collided with the wall. "I see how you are now. I spoil the only thing precious left to you and you try to spoil the only thing precious left to me..."

Anything to wipe that horrible, smug expression off your face, you rat. You so much as SAY that sacred name again and I will rip your heart out.

Stripes disregarded her threat. "Regardless of his biological parentage, I did more part in raising Sephiroth than you or your -adorable- little boyfriend ever did, you little--"

Lucrecia yawned. Whine away, DEAR. You'll never get anything from me like that...except a smile at seeing you WRITHE!

"You never saw him grow up to be as refined and strong, brutal in battle, polite and thoughtful in disposition. I taught him half the things he knew. I came to respect him and think of him as my own, even though he thought the dirt of me..."

Half those things you taught him were LIES.

"How would you feel if I told you you were a human experiment meant to boost corporate profits! If anything, I did it to protect him!"

And, as with everything else you do, it backfired on you, nearly costing the lives of every single person on this planet. Sephiroth could not and can not bring back your child.

"Back then, I would not have and did not care. I don't think you've ever bore the pain of watching a little boy like him, whom you helped raise, brought him up to be respectable and respected, better than yourself, someone who deserved to live more than you did, roll his eyes back into his head and DIE before he even got to live--"

Lucrecia gasped and dissolved as someone opened the door.

"Stripes?" came a voice from downstairs.

Stripes growled, being cut off at such a crucial point. "Who is it?" he called down.

"It's Elena...E-elena Davenport. I don't think you know me...I-I'm Rude and Reno's friend."

"Just a moment...I'll be down in a sec." Stripes stumbled into the bathroom and wiped his face off, then grabbed his sunglasses from his room.

. Elena stood there, shivering. She had definately been spooked recently. She waved timidly up at him as he came down the stairs.

"What can I help you with, young lady?" Stripes asked as jovially as he could. His acting was a little shabby at the moment.

"I-I-I've always wanted a phoenix on my back," she said timidly, looking at the floor.

Stripes clapped his hands together, trying his best to politely ignore Elena's mood. Whatever it was, he wasn't causing it and wasn't about to add to it. "Phoenix, huh? Are you sure you've got the money for it? They can run pretty high depending..."

"I have the money," she said entirely too quickly.

"Any particular style?"

Elena held up a scale drawing of what she wanted done.

Stripes blinked. He had never had a customer so prepared. "Who did this, may I ask?"

Elena opened her mouth to reply, but was startled by the loud enterance of Reno and Rude.

"HELLO, STRYPIE-BABY!" Reno announced, completely slobbering drunk.

Rude was struggling to help him up and noticed his colleague. "Oh...Elena, what are you doing here?"

Elena jumped. "OH! N-nothing, just getting a tattoo, that's all."

The veteran Turk sensed her apprehension. "You want us to come up with you? From the looks of it, you might get bored with nobody here but Stripes to talk to...no offense."

Stripes shook his head and held a hand up in friendly reply.

"Sure...but what about Reno? He's useless..."

Reno hiccuped and giggled.

"He'll make a nice room-ornament," Rude replied.

Stripes motioned to the stairs. "Shall we, then?"

Elena nodded and Stripes helped Rude carry Reno up the stairs. He had been glad of the little time he had spent at the neighborhood gym Tifa managed to drag him to before she left: Reno was skinny, but quite heavy.

Elena got herself situated and Stripes did a few practice sketches on some spare paper. Reno was sat up against a messy bureau full of art supplies like a ragdoll and left to sober. Rude tried to think of something to say. Elena was still too spooked to think of anything, Reno's repeated suggestion of pointed sticks was turned down with increasing exasperation and Rude, who had been the one to ask the question, was still completely stumped.

"You three used to work for ShinRa, didn't you?" Stripes asked.

Rude nodded. "We're not supposed to be proud of it or anything, though. Cloud's orders. But I really don't give a sh--"

"Rude..." Elena censured.

"Sorry."

"Do you remember Sephiroth at all?"

"AH! Just the topic to piss the boss off! Yeah. Personally, too, I might add," Rude replied.

"All I remember was that he killed Tseng," Elena said glumly.

Rude shook his head. "That wasn't Sephiroth. That was one of the clones Jenova was using as a hand-puppet, thanks to Hojo. You never knew him BEFORE he died."

Stripes knew Lucrecia was still around. There was a pocket of cold air directly behind him. "What was he like before he died?"

Rude sat back and put his hands behind his gleaming, bald head. "Semi-quiet type. Reminds me of how Vincent used to be before he let popularity go to his head. Only, Sephiroth was kind of devious about his own teeming mass of fangirls. He knew everybody loved him, but he didn't indulge himself in it. He had a grand sense of humor on him. Kind of odd, having been raised chiefly by the Science Department. One would think that he would have turned out to be more secretive and stingy like Hojo was, but as Seph himself once said, he had made sure that he was like anyone BUT Hojo."

Stripes smiled pseudo-politely in no one's general direction as he took a sharpie and began to ink in Elena's tattoo.

"Poor old decrepit little neurotic man...he pulled a few good ones on Seph a few times, though. One could tell he cared a great deal about his well-being despite the fact that Sephiroth always teased him and pulled his little 'jock authority' stunts on him all the time. I think maybe once or twice Sephiroth stopped calling him a moron and saw him as the head of about his dozen caretakers."

"Aww..." Elena said, "that's kinda sad."

"Even if he WAS a moron," Stripes interjected.

Rude put up a finger. "Moron he may have been in many things, but he was a very devoted moron. I think he liked to think of Sephiroth as his son. You should have seen him when Sephiroth died. Man, he was inconsolable for about a week afterwards, and he was never the easiest person to talk to in the first place. I was in the helicopter when they retrieved Sephiroth's body from the Nibelheim Reactor. He was having a terrible time trying not to cry. Hojo only ever said one thing directly to me. I'll never forget it. He looked at me with his scary-ass, icy blue eyes and said: 'Children should never die before their parents do...don't you agree, Rude?' Man, I had no idea he even knew my name. I kinda nodded like a simpleton for a few seconds. Then...then it was like, he turned his head, closed his eyes to blink and when he opened them again, they were dead."

Stripes scratched his head innocently. "Huh?"

"You know! How people usually have this little glimmer in their eyes?" Rude crawled over to Reno and opened his eyes wide. "You see that cute little glimmer?"

The other two nodded in understanding.

"Well, that just kinda...you know...disappeared from Hojo's eyes since then. It was like both him -and- Sephiroth died. Of course, people missed Seph more. But I says, 'im wot killed Seph, killed 'Ojo, too. And we all know now the ''im' wot killed Mr. Roth."

Stripes and Elena nodded.

"And I think Cloud knows that. That's why he's still scared of Hojo even though he's dead. Jenova can do some pretty wonky things. If she reanimated Sephiroth, just think of what she would to to bring her precious little follower back to life."

Stripes laughed out loud. "What a buncha horse-hockey!"

Rude nodded. "Yeah. Sometimes I wish ShinRa was still around. That way we wouldn't have to put up with Cloud's constant paranoia."

Elena nodded. "You know what I heard?"

Rude turned his head to face Elena and arched his eyebrows in interest. "She SPEAKS!"

"I heard...that when Tifa was gone, Cloud got even worse. He gave up showering and--"

"Is this going to be another one of your hygenal sermons?" Rude interjected.

"Shuttup! And, well, with no one around to satisfy his...you know...urges...I heard...I heard..."

"Spit it out, man!" Reno drooled.

"I heard he raped Yuffie Kisaragi!"

Stripes blinked.

"The secretary?" Rude asked, agog.

"Better you than her, wot?" Reno guffawed, not knowing that he was suffering from a drunken case of dyslexia on top of his foul joke.

Stripes, Rude and Elena scowled at him.

Reno blinked and looked at them innocently. "What? Oh...I...I'm drunk...don't listen to me," he said, slumping down to go to sleep.

The pocket of cold air beside Stripes dissipated.

"I had a son once...well...almost had a son," Stripes said, trying to restore the mood to the room.

"Oh, really, Stripes?" Elena asked, "What was his name?"

Stripes sighed. "His name would have been Timothy."

"What do you mean, almost had a son?" Rude asked.

"My wife aborted our son without me knowing about it. I can't help but wonder what he may have become," he said sadly, looking up.

The pocket of cold air beside Stripes dissipated.

Stripes worked through the night, and finished at daybreak.

Elena stood up and showed her tattoo off to the drowzy eyes of the dozing Rude uselessly and got redressed after Stripes bandaged it. He stated the normal cautionary procedures of taking care of herself while the tattoo set in, and Reno and Rude were woken up and dragged down to the lobby. Elena signed her name in Stripes' book: 21.

"Ah...einundzwanzig...I've got a pretty fair collection of people here now, don't you agree, Elena?" Stripes remarked with a wink. Behind his sunglasses, Elena could see the movement of his eye, but not the color or shape of it. She giggled girlishly. Rude broke from his drowsy spell and looked at Stripes for a moment. Wearing sunglasses himself, Rude couldn't see Stripes' eyes, either. Neither of them dared remove their eyewear. Rude blinked, changing modes of thought and put his hand up.

"Good day to you, Stripes. Get some rest!"

"Yes, I think we all could use a little of that," the tattoo artist replied.

Elena hugged Stripes and Stripes put his hand on Elena's head in a fatherly manner as Reno and Rude made their exit. Then the girl was gone.

Stripes dragged himself up the stairs with a smile on his face. He never thought that he'd ever grow to like the Turks. Maybe...maybe they weren't all bad. Having a grudge against one person from a particular group of people did not neccesarily have to mean that you had to damn the entire group. Stripes sighed and stopped halfway up the stairs, reflecting on how much more he had learned in his short new life than he had in his previous long one.

No...now was not the time to bring that up again. He didn't want Lucrecia back in his head, picking at his thoughts like a vulture.

Stripes stretched and yawned, yanking his way up the steep townhouse stairs. A slightly familiar tune invaded his mind...

"And now I'm all alone again, no one to turn, no one go to...no one to somethin' somethin' somethin' somethin' somethin' say hello to..." Stripes leaned against the doorframe of his bedroom and thought a while. "Where was that from...? I can't remember...so familiar. ...Da dee dee dada deedee dada dee dee dada with the company I'm keeping... The city goes to bed, and I can live inside my head..." Stripes snapped his fingers in triumph and opened his CD player. The disk had been in there since before he had arrived and had long since lost its partner. Stripes took his finger and picked what remained of his soundtrack to Les Miserables up with it, twirled it around for a moment and took a look at it. The song he had been trying to remember was 'On My Own.' Stripes thought for a moment, trying to recall the rest of the song up.

It was sung by a female character...a girl...a girl compensating for her unrequited love of a boy by pretending he walked alone at night with her. A girl...who died coming back from a favor she had done for the boy who did not love her...delivering a letter to the girl he loved.

Stripes blinked and took off his sunglasses to rub his eyes. What was her name, this valiant youth? Stripes pondered, and then it came to him: "Eponine!"

Hearing himself say her name evoked in Stripes a strong pang of guilt as he remembered her exact situation. He himself had been in it. Only...he had reacted much to be the antipathy of Eponine. He had hurt...he had killed...she had swallowed her grief and stayed true to her friend. How could he have said her name?

Stripes slumped down and put his hand over his eyes. "Dammit, I don't want to think about this right now..."

In another part of the city, Vincent Valentine laid on his bed, staring straight up at the ceiling. His recent encounters with Lucrecia had thrown him back to memories of a time gone by, when people were kind, when everyone was soft, and inviting...then came the time...when it all went wrong. He fell in love with the girl of his dreams. She was smart, respectable, and somehow naive. She was also married and about a week pregnant to a man who was fastly losing interest in her due to some stupid experiment he and she and some other geek were performing. He had shown her many things, taken her many places, opened her eyes to a world outside of science. Little did he know that he had also inadvertantly manipulated her into having an abortion of the baby she had by her husband. Nobody had really known she was pregnant but her. Hojo had become too wrapped up in his work to even notice. He couldn't believe it...and he never found out about it until after he had helped somewhat to replace the life he had helped to extinguish. That was agony.

A good little boy like him...  
Instigating an abortion!  
He had to apologize...

Vincent had always had a knack for waking people up from their various kinds of sleep...physical sleep...naievity, ignorance...so far, it had done him nothing but good until he dragged Hojo out of his work for a moment and had the sheer -audacity- to try and apologize. Apologizing also had broken the news to the man about his wife's unfaithfulness. They had been married about half a year, known each other about a month before they got married. The match hadn't been made in Heaven...but not exactly in Hell, either. They were both young and had no idea what they thought they were doing. For all their equations, methods and memorized charts and the like, scientists were extremely stupid people when it came down to things that really mattered.

Hojo failed to see any side of the story other than his own.

Lucrecia concocted the excuse of Hojo's unhealthy attachment to Jenova to drive her to me.

They bickered and argued for months.

Hojo was ready to kill Vincent for having an affair with Lucrecia.

Lucrecia was ready to kill Hojo if he killed Vincent for having an affair with Lucrecia.

Jenova was ready to kill Lucrecia if she killed Hojo if he killed Vincent for having an affair with Lucrecia.

The Turks were ready to kill Jenova if she killed Lucrecia if she killed Hojo if he killed Vincent for having an affair with Lucrecia.

Professor Gast would get President ShinRa to fire the Turks if they killed Jenova if she killed Lucrecia if she killed Hojo if he killed Vincent for having an affair with Lucrecia.

The Turks would get the coal miners to revolt against Mako production if Professor Gast got President ShinRa to fire the Turks if they killed Jenova if she killed Lucrecia if she killed Hojo if he killed Vincent for having an affair with Lucrecia.

President ShinRa would rake up his weapons department to blow the coal miners out of the sky if the Turks got the coal miners to complain about Mako if Professor Gast got President ShinRa to fire the Turks if they killed Jenova if she killed Lucrecia if she killed Hojo if he killed Vincent for having an affair with Lucrecia.

The survivors of the ShinRa gun would rally the people to take down ShinRa if he fired on the coal miners if they complained against Mako if President ShinRa to fire the Turks if they killed Jenova if she killed Lucrecia if she killed Hojo if he killed Vincent for having an affair with Lucrecia.

He didn't know why they swallowed the fly.

He guessed they'd die.

The couple built up their childish argument until it became a joke. The world fought a war between them, nations rose and fell because Vincent had an afair with Lucrecia, aliens decended, chocobos gave birth, and the continents drifted until origin of what had started this imaginary society was forgotten. One can only make up so many verses to a song one sings the last part over and over again before they begin to leave out things.

Their relations mended for a time and thus, Vincent left for a while, dejected. Hojo had won this duel. And with the threat gone, he began to get back to his work.

Also, with the threat gone, he no longer strove to protect Lucrecia against any territory-invading suitors. Not before long, Vincent and Lucrecia were together again.

Then came the announcement: there was to be an experiment performed on the baby Lucrecia carried in her womb. She ran crying to Vincent, and Vincent went storming mad to Hojo. But this time, the now half-cracked Hojo was not in the mood to argue up another imaginary world war. He just up and shot him when he returned. Lucrecia couldn't fulfill her oath and kill Hojo for doing so: she had just gone into labor.

As one life ebbed, another began to replace it.

Or so Vincent had thought.

Hojo had not ended his life. Hojo had -prolonged- his life. He woke him up, showed him what remained of Lucrecia and shoved him in that stuffy coffin for thirty years to think about it.

Think...that was the worst possible thing Hojo could have done with him. How dare he make him think after instilling a key element of self-loathing? It was torture. To be locked in a room for thirty years with the one person in the world he hated the most: himself.

Thirty years.

He had ended up killing the thing he loved the most.

And had started a life only for it to be mangled anyway.

Then it happened:

Drunken, older, but not much wiser, even more cracked than before, Hojo declared that he himself was the sire of Sephiroth.

Could Lucrecia have lied to him about that abortion she said she had?

Maybe...it was Hojo himself that experimented on his own child...all his fault...Vincent was not to blame...could it be? Could the shackles finally be lifted off of Vincent's appendages and transferred to their rightful wearer?

Vincent passed by a mirror one day, after all the things with Meteor and Sephiroth and Jenova were gone. He stopped, turned his head and looked in it. For the first time, he didn't turn his head in disgust. Instead, he said: "Vincent Valentine...you are...an okay guy."

Time passed.  
He began to forget Lucrecia, Hojo, Sephiroth, the whole crooked deal.  
He took a much wanted and possibly much needed break from thinking.  
Vincent began to stop in the mirror more often.  
Vincent was a decent guy.  
Vincent was a good guy.  
Vincent was a very good guy.  
Vincent was a very handsome guy.  
Vincent was a damn saxy man.  
Vincent was king of the world and deserved the best of everything!  
Five years.

He could have gone on like that forever.

Serving some paltry time as Cloud's bodyguard.

Who was Cloud again?

Oh, yeah. He killed Sephiroth. HOJO'S kid. Ha ha ha.

But then came Lucrecia four nights ago, opening up old wounds to bleed as brightly as they did the first time. Why had she lied to him about the abortion? Had she even lied at all? Hojo was drunk and dying when he said Sephiroth was his son...Vincent had had considerably more drinking time on his hands to know that when one is drunk, one's thinking becomes clouded. He also remembered the sensation of dying. Everything spinning around him, flashing before him, didn't make very much sense. Could he go on Hojo's word based on his condition then? Given Hojo's character in the first place, could he even trust him at all? Trust Hojo? Never...

So that must have meant...that he WAS responsible for all the hardships that had occured.

Vincent shook his head and covered his ears. "NO! No more thinking!"

The girl in bed next to him stirred in her sleep, but didn't wake up.

He was too used to life the way he had it now. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't go back to brooding all by himself. He had duties and a job to keep up on. He was the leader of the Turks. The squealing mass of fangirls who still saw him as being brooding were a nice touch, as well.

Vincent got out of bed and fiddled with his massive collection of CDs. Most of them were sent to him by avid fans, even though he hardly even touched them after they had been given to him. They figured he was brooding, so it was all right with them.

Vincent shrugged and pulled out a white, double CD case with a scribble of a little girl...at least, he thought it was a girl, etched in front of a French flag on the cover.

(Classical music?) he wondered. Most of his fans may have been dumb, but not all of them lacked some kind of good taste. That was why they liked him, wasn't it?

Vincent eenie-meenie-miney-moed his way to picking a CD and loaded it into the stereo, pressing a random track.

Stripes had been leaned up against the foot of his bed for nearly four hours listening to his measly snippit of Les Mis. He was beginning to project nearly every song to some aspect of his life, as well as remember the lyrics well enough to sing along in his pitiful excuse for tenor...or was he baritone? He couldn't tell. He knew diddly squat about music. But he -did- know that he couldn't sing bass. He sang just a little lower, and with slightly less finesse, than Tom Servo, and Tom Servo couldn't sing that low, so he figured he wasn't a bass. His voice still reeked of WASPy pomp, despite the fact that he hadn't slept in at least 48 hours.

Stripes cleared his throat as the next song came on...

"'Castle on a Cloud,' national escapist anthem..."

Vincent had been listening to his random track on infinate repeat since he put it in. The girl he was with, he didn't even remember her name, got weirded out and ran home about three hours ago. Vincent didn't notice. He was too busy projecting, and singing, of course, in his boy-band pitched voice that made girls squeal when he went to karaoke concerts...

"There is a castle on a cloud..."  
"There is a castle on a cloud..."  
"There is a castle on a cloud..."  
"I like to go there in my sleep."  
"I like to go there in my sleep."  
"I like to go there in my sleep."  
"Aren't any floors for me to sweep..."  
"Aren't any floors for me to sweep..."  
"Aren't any floors for me to sweep..."  
"Not in my castle on a cloud."  
"Not in my castle on a cloud."  
"Not in my castle on a cloud."

"There is a room that's full of toys..."  
"There is a room that's full of toys..."  
"There is a room that's full of toys..."  
"There are a hundred boys and girls."  
"There are a hundred boys and girls."  
"There are a hundred boys and girls."  
"Nobody shouts or talks too loud..."  
"Nobody shouts or talks too loud..."  
"Nobody shouts or talks too loud..."  
"Not in my castle on a cloud."  
"Not in my castle on a cloud."  
"Not in my castle on a cloud."

"There is a la-dy all in whi-ite..."  
"Ooooooo-ooh oo oooooooo-ooh oo..."  
"Aaaaaaa-aah ah aaaaaaaa-aah ah..."  
"Holds me and siings a lul-lu-by."  
"Hoooooooooolds meeeeeeeeeeeee!"  
" rest a lullaBY!"  
"She's nice to see and she's soft to touch..."  
"Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh hooo hooo..."  
"She's nice to see and she's soft to touch..."  
"She says..."  
"She says..."  
"She says..."  
"'Cossette,'"  
"'Vincent,'"  
"'Hojo,'"  
"'I love you very much!'"  
"'I love you very much!'"  
"'I hate you very much.'"

"I know a place where no one's lost..."  
"I know a place where no one's lost..."  
"I know a place where no one's lost..."  
"I know a place where no one cries..."  
"I know a place where no one cries..."  
"I know a place where no one cries..."  
"Crying at all is not allowed..."  
"Crying at all is not allowed..."  
"Crying at all is not allowed..."  
"Not on my castle on a cloud."  
"Not on my castle on a cloud."  
"Not on my castle on a cloud."


	8. Chapter 8

A month passed since Tifa returned to Cloud...

She stirred in her sleep...

Not thirty centimeters away from her, Cloud and Aeris were doing as best a job of private display of affection as they could. Aeris' arm was wrapped around Cloud's tattooed shoulder, making the phosphorescent ink glow brightly.

Tifa grumbled. What was Cloud making the bed move around for? He tossed and turned too much. Tifa grudgingly opened her eyes and looked over at her husband...getting a face full of his glowing tattoo.

Tifa screamed as if she had just been shot and half-jumped, half-fell out of bed.  
It took Cloud a minute or so to catch on to what was going on, which gave Tifa time to glare at him and the mark on his shoulder.

AERIS.

It was always AERIS.

Tifa sneered.

Cloud snapped out of it finally.

Aeris disappeared.

Cloud gave her a tired look and rubbed his head. "What is it, sugar cakes?"

Livid, a murderous look on her face, Tifa screamed again and started looking around the room. "WHAT HAVE I DONE TO YOU, AERIS! TELL ME! JUST WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING! SHOW YOURSELF!"

A winter breeze wafted through the closed window.

"SHOW YOURSELF!"

Aeris materialized, and an apologetic expression on her face. I didn't mean it. He came to me.

Tifa screamed in frustration.

I was only trying to help since you--

"WHAT THE HELL HAVE I DONE WRONG! YOU THINK I CAN'T PLEASURE MY HUSBAND! IS THAT IT, YOU LITTLE WHORE!" Tifa grabbed for the bed. Cloud ducked away needlessly; Tifa had been reaching for a pillow to throw violently at her rival. "HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN GOING ON LIKE THIS!"

Tifa...

"HOW LONG!"

Cloud squeaked.

Tifa's face was red. "-HOW- -LONG?-!"

"Four years..." Cloud managed, semi-guiltily.

Tifa threw the pillow violently at Aeris, but it had little effect on the ghost. Aeris rematerialized and put on an even more piteous expression. You're so violent...

"VIOLENT! Of COURSE I'm violent! How do you think I FEEL!"

Violence never solves anything.

"I suppose not, since it didn't rid me of YOU!"

Cloud was desperately trying to regain his leverage over Tifa. "What are you doing this for? C-can't we all just get along?"

Tifa turned around, scaring Cloud out of the bed as she was staring at him with her eyes as wide as they could go. "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Cloud squeaked as if he was hurt.  
Awww...!

Tifa turned back to Aeris with a feral sneer.

You're being very unladylike about this, Tifa.

"You want ladylike? I'LL GIVE YOU LADYLIKE!" Tifa bellowed, closing her eyes, taking a deep breath and putting on her best morning person voice. "Hello, my name is Tifa Strife. You're fucking my husband. I'm going to bring you back to life to pull out your liver and feed it to him so he can taste the bile that's about to come up from my throat." Tifa gave her a bright-eyed, winning smile and blinked stupidly.

You don't have to parody it so rudely, Aeris stated, getting slightly miffed.

"Excuse me. I am afraid that I am not in the best of moods right now. Hmm! Wonder why?"  
Aeris began to laugh as Tifa let go of her refined-young-lady fascade.

"What's so funny?" she growled.

Hee hee hee...you poor girl...poor poor poor...Seems like Cloud is yours no more...was he yourn even befourn?

"What in the--?"

Cloud came up behind her and put his arms around her waist. "She's plagued by constant bouts of insanity. Have pity, Tifa! She died so horribly for us!"

Tifa shoved him to the floor. Her voice came as an acidic whisper to Cloud's ears. "Don't you -touch- me, you..."

"B-but Tifa, I--"

"How can you PRETEND something like that!"

Lonely soul...lonely soul, wants someone to fill the hole. Could be a model or a mole, Cloud needs someone to fill the hole!

Tifa folded her arms and looked at Cloud, still on the floor. "You POOR baby."

"Tifa, what's happened to you? Have you no beating heart? Aren't you going to cry?"

"I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of letting you see me cry, you...ARGH! WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME! Can't you just be content with her and her ethereal necking!"

Cloud shivered involuntarily. "She's...cold."

Ice, ice, ice, ice! Touching ice don't feel so nice!

Tifa thought for a moment. "Then...how did you...when I was gone?"

Cloud blinked. "I..."

Tifa gasped.

Reeve and Barrett waited outside the therapist's door. They hadn't been coming in to work since they had found Yuffie under the desk. They had taken her to the hospital, helped her back home and made appointments for her to see the therapist. Barrett was flipping through an issue of Cosmopolitan and Reeve was trying to find the hidden pictures in a Highlights backissue when the psychiatrist opened the door.

"Gentlemen?"

Barrett stood up worriedly and Reeve spazzed, the magazine flipping out of his hands as he fumbled to stand at attention as his hulking colleague had done. "Sup?"

"Miss Kisaragi seems to be suffering from some kind of traumatic shock of some kind. I can't even get her to speak to me..."

"I-i-is there anything we can do for her, doctor? Anything at all? Anything! ANYTHING?" Reeve pleaded.

The doctor looked at the floor and twiddled his foot around. He shook his head. "She's going to have to work this out for herself, sirs. Recovering from this kind of thing takes a lot of time. There is no overnight cure for Miss Kisaragi."

Barrett slammed his fist into the nearest wall and cursed.

"I'm sorry...maybe we could afford to give her some medicine, but I'm afraid since Mr. Strife banned all kinds of scientific research and production aside from solar power, the manufacturers haven't been able to restock our supplies."

Reeve gave the doctor a big-puppy-eyed stare. "We'll take ANYTHING, doctor!"

"Yo, man, shut the hell up! We ain't desperate housewives..."

"Barrett! What other choice do we have?"

Barrett sighed and nodded. "Doc...we'll take what all's you got."

The doctor nodded and left the room.

"Yuffie?" Reeve called from the waiting room.

Yuffie silently came out of her balled up position and crept into the waiting room, seemingly wary of every particle of dust in the room. Reeve offered his hand to her politely, but she didn't even notice it.

The doctor returned with half a bottle of medicine and a piece of paper with his signature on it. "I'm sorry this isn't incredibly formal...but it's the best we can do under these horrid conditions. That'll be 300 gil, please."

Tifa phoned the Turks and asked for any recent information regarding Yuffie Kisaragi, and was put on hold.

(I should have noticed her gone these four weeks I've been back. Why didn't I? Argh, I am SO stupid!)

Tifa thought about confronting Cloud again, but somehow, she cared more about knowing how Yuffie was doing than yelling at Cloud at the moment. Once she was done apologizing to her, she was going to file for divorce. She didn't care if Cloud kept everything she owned. All she wanted was to get out now. That's all that mattered.

An elevator music version of "I Am A Rock, I Am An Island" came on the radio over the phone. Tifa steeled herself to keep from crying.

(Rock...that's right. Heart for a rock. Rockheart. Tifa Rockheart. I can't be blubbering at a time like this. I have to find a way to undo the damage I've caused -and- get rid of this stupid power web Cloud has worked up for himself. The city is suffering because I was trying to please him...I didn't have the guts to stop him.)

"H'lo?" came Reno's voice over the phone, derailing Tifa's train of thought.

"OH! Hi, Reno...do you have anything on Yuffie?"

Reno was heard flipping through some papers. "Ahhm, last I heard, she had been checked in and out of Junon Memorial Hospital. She had an appointment to see a Dr. Ramada Ihn yesterday at 4pm. Her next appointment was scheduled for tomorrow at 5pm."

Tifa stood up. "Where can I find this Dr. Ihn?"

"His office is down by the pier."

"Thank you, Reno, thank you!" Tifa spouted and hung up.

Reno blinked at the dial tone and hung up his end.

Vincent came into the room with a tight-lipped expression. Reno absently saluted. "What's up, sir?"

"This just came down to me from Cloud...it seems...by some weird circumstance...that Professor Hojo has been brought back to life. We have orders to find him and capture him before he can do any kind of damage to us or the city."

"Back from the dead?" Reno asked, speculative.

Vincent looked suspiciously left and right. "Look, I know it sounds stupid, but I have a feeling Cloud is onto something here. You never know. We never made sure Jenova was actually dead after the big battle five years ago, did we?"

Reno shook his head. "But, sir...I don't think we should waste much-needed manpower on what could turn out to be a wild goose chase."

Vincent scowled at Reno. He hadn't scowled since...he couldn't remember.

"Listen...what could one crotchety old man by himself who's probably entirely disoriented POSSIBLY do to an entire city, sir?"

Vincent huffed and slammed the order down on Reno's desk. "I'm assigning you, Elena, a rookie and Rude to do the job. I'm expecting results by the end of three months!"

Reno shook his head in disgust as his boss stomped out of the room.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

"And, so he just STOMPS out of the room like an old woman in a huff!" Reno relayed to Rude, Elena, Stripes and the pimply rookie Turk sitting around him at the poker table.

Stripes put down his hand and looked around. "Well...it doesn't sound too farfetched..."

Elena choked on the potato chip she was munching on. "You have GOT to be kidding, Stripes."

"Well, haven't weirder things happened?" Stripes turned to the young Turk.

"Uhh...I can't remember, Mr. Stripes. I've lived in the city all my life..." the rookie replied.

Stripes cocked an eyebrow. "Rude?"

"I've seen some strange things happen. Only half of them were natural...but since Jenova got put down, there hasn't been too many weird things going on," Rude said.

Stripes shrugged. "Well, isn't this the right time for something TO happen, in that case?"

Rude looked at Stripes. Neither of them took their sunglasses off. The veteran Turk had found himself doing that often lately. There had to be a reason. There was just...something about Stripes. He shook his head and smiled. "Heh. Maybe, Stripes. May be. Anyway, it's a job we've got. Hunt the geezer down and bring him to the scaffolds to be stoned by Cloud and Vincent or something or other.

Stripes polished off his drink and held the glass up for a moment. "Bugger deserves everything he gets."

"You gunna blame your recent lack of customers on him, Stripes?" Elena asked.

Stripes winked and put up his hand. "Hey. Whatever works, ya know."

He had had only one customer since Elena. Number 22 had been a fidgetty young businessman who wanted a ten-gallon hat on his armpit. It was a small gig and not worth much money. Stripes should have been starving by now if it wasn't for the Turks. Or so they thought. Money was really no object to Stripes. Never had been.

"Hmm..." Rude pondered.

"So, how did the higher-ups get this information?" Stripes asked.

Reno shook his head. "I have NO idea. I think Vincent just pulled it right out of his ass."

"And he's got no description, no what-to-look-for?"

"Not a one."

Stripes blinked and took another swig out of his empty glass. "Moron."

"You seem to call people morons a lot, sir" the rookie squeaked.

Stripes looked at him as if he were an insect. "What did you way your name was, young man?"

The young Turk ran his hand through his dubious and limp mowhawk and sputtered. "M-my name's Sunder. You're the first person who's asked me that since I got to the recruiting station," he continued, throwing a sour look at Reno and Rude, trying to ignore Elena's obvious indifference to him.

"Sunder? That can't possibly be your real name."

"It can and it is!" Sunder thundered.

Rude threw a red Skittle gigantic pile in the middle of the table. "Shut up, rookie."

Sunder pointed at Rude, eyes wide with indignancy.

Stripes put down his glass and threw another red Skittle into the pile. "I see your red, and raise you a purple."

Elena put down her cards. "Too sweet for my blood."

Reno folded as well. "Dammit, lost again!"

Stripes and Rude stared their battle-of-the-sunglasses stare and Sunder exploded. "You people, we are -supposed- to be looking for Professor Hojo here!"

"Professor Yuto Hojo is dead and gone," Stripes stated bluntly, not taking his eyes off Rude.

Reno blinked. "Hey, man...how'd you know Hojo's first name?"

Rude flicked a yellow Skittle into the pile. "Yeah..."

Elena blinked, but did not move.

Stripes stacked three red Skittles, two green, one yellow, one grape and an orange between his fingers and added them to the bet pile. "...It was in the papers when he died."

Sunder stood up, disgusted. "So, what? You're just going to give up because the guy died? The orders from the boss state here that Hojo is alive!"

Rude met Stripes' bet and added an orange of his own. "And if we asked him two plus two, he'd tell you it was five."

Sunder stood up "Argh! What's wrong with you? You afraid of new ideas?"

Stripes added a green. "It's never happened before."

Rude looked at him suspiciously. "Yes, it has. Don't you remember the lil scare three years ago with Scarlet and Heidegger?"

Stripes blinked and cleared his throat. "Oh, yes...I forgot."

Rude added a final red. "Heidegger and Scarlet came back from the dead, fused as some kind of monster with two heads three years ago. Looked like something Hojo'd cooked up."

Reno blinked. "Wait, I don't remember that at all, Rude."

"It was only around for a day. That's why."

"Then how could Stripes have heard of it if even -I- hadn't?"

"You were on vacation. I don't think you got that copy of the Junon Times. It was only a little two-paragraph article."

"Then why should I have known of it?" Stripes asked.

Rude blinked stolidly. "You seem to like to read newspapers thoroughly, Stripes."

Stripes flicked a red Skittle into the pile. Rude matched it. The tattoo artist and the Turk continued to raise the stakes until Stripes was down to his last red. He rolled it around with his finger and finally placed it in the pile. Rude matched it. Stripes broke his stolid fascade and put down his cards--a royal flush, spade suit. "I guess you've got me beat, Turk."

Rude blinked, gulped, and put down his cards--a royal flush, heart suit.

Elena blinked. "So...who wins the Skittles?"

"You can havvem," Stripes and Rude said at the same time.

"Guyyys, you're freakin' me out here!" Reno wailed.

Sunder wasn't impressed. "We have a -job- to do here!"

Elena gave the rookie a cold look. "Buzz off if you're gunna be like that, Sunder."

Sunder opened his mouth, but no words came out. He pushed in his chair with an indignant look on his face, keeping his eyes on Elena and stomped out of the bar. "Boss is gunna hear about this!"

"Your boss can stick it up his fine little Playgirl ass." Stripes jibed, but was silenced by a prim-ish look from Elena. He winked at her. "And I mean that in the most respectful way possible, of course."

Elena giggled. Reno rubbed the back of his head and chuckled. Rude smiled. Stripes crossed his striped arms and sighed. "Now, what are we gunna do with all these Skittles?"

Behind his sunglasses, Stripes detected a glint of playful glee in Rude's eyes. The Turk bent down so his head was close to the table, as did the other remaining Turks. "Survival of the fittest!"

"What?" Stripes blinked as the Turks began gobbling up the Skittles as fast as they could. Stripes thought for a while, then joined them.

After that sugary semi-orgy, Stripes bid the Turks farewell and walked back to his house. Elena sat down with a laugh and licked her fingers. "That was FUN!"

Reno stopped laughing for a moment and made a hand gesture at Rude. "So! Tell me more about Scarldegger!"

Rude rubbed the sweat off his head. "There WAS no Scarldegger."

"What?" the red-headed Turk asked.

Elena nodded. "I knew what Rude was trying to do, so I didn't say anything."

Reno looked at his two comrades in bewilderment. "So...what does that mean?"

"Stripes is withholding information from us."

"Like he did about Tifa? But that was for her own good, Rude. Stripes couldn't possibly be harboring Hojo too, could he?"

Rude stood up and walked around to where Stripes had sat and picked up his empty glass. "We'll soon find out."

Stripes barely got his boots off before he flopped down on his bed. How was it that he had gotten so tired all of a sudden? He had had only one thing to dr--

Stripes slumped to the floor, unconscious.


	9. Chapter 9

Elena gave Rude a very worried look. "Are you sure we should do this to him? He's our friend, Rude!"

Rude nodded. "Yes, I know...but we aren't exactly hurting him, now are we?"

Elena fidgeted anyway.

Reno opened the door to the tattoo parlor and Elena and Rude followed him in. It was dark...almost scary. Elena took Reno's arm and clung onto it. The shop never looked like this when Stripes was actually around. The only lighting was the faint glow from the black light display in the front window, accenting the mako-infused pipes behind the walls. Junon was now practically mako-free, but Cloud's administration hadn't exactly gone into every house in the city and redone the plumbing.

Elena crept into the kitchen and turned on the florescent light, which buzzed irritably. She checked the refrigerator, the sink and the pantry for Hojo and came up with nothing. "Nothing in here!" she said.

Reno threw her a look and hissed: "Quiet DOWN! He might hear us!"

Elena blinked. "Who? Stripes?"

"No. Hojo!" Rude whispered.

"Ohhh..."

The trio of Turks sneaked their way up the stairs, checking in Stripes' store rooms. Bathroom, bedroom, closet, bathtub, on the roof and under the stairs, looked through all his files, drawers, boxes, CDs, hair care products and found nothing there.

"I told you this was a dumb idea!" Elena huffed, motioning to the collapsed form of their friend on the floor. "What's he gonna do when he finds out his house has been ransacked by us because we didn't trust him? What do we do next? Plant a bug? Tap his phone conversations?"

Rude shook his head. "No, Elena. We leave and act as if this never happened. It was a false alarm."

"Can't we at least put him on his bed? It's getting to be winter pretty soon, and I don't want him sick, ya know?" Reno offered.

"No. I think he'll remember having slumped to the floor. We have to leave everything as it was before he got knocked out. It's better that he doesn't know about this," Rude replied.

"We're still his friends, right, Rude?" Elena squeaked.

"Of -course- we are! That's why it's very important that he not know we did this to him."

Elena nodded, satisfied with Rude's reasoning. "Okay...come on, Reno. Let's go."

"Right."

Elena and Reno stepped out. Rude took one last look under Stripes' bed and stood up. He looked at the unconcious tattoo artist and sighed. "I'm sorry, man." He looked to the left, and the right, started to take his sunglasses off, but stopped. "No...I can't. I'll let you have that, at least," he said. Rude cleared his throat, stood up and walked down the stairs where his fellow Turks waited.

The next day, Tifa was walking to Junon Memorial. She was smartly dressed in a blue business suit. Blue. She had always liked blue. Green, too, she supposed. Cloud's eyes were kind of in between green and blue. She wished with a curse that they'd pick one color and stay that way. She also wished he had picked a lot of other things and stayed that way. It didn't matter now. She carried the divorce papers in her briefcase.

Her train of thought chugged along how the sky used to be blue once in this area... around a -lot- of areas...until ShinRa with their Mako and their reactors and their power plays and--

"OOF!"

A young man with a blue mohawk dressed as a Turk had crashed into her. He looked as if he had stayed out all night. Possibly drunk. Typical Turk. "Excuse me," she said gruffly.

The boy seemed extremely frightened by her attitude and stepped back as he brushed himself off. "I-I'm sorry, ma'am...I wasn't thinking very straight." He pulled out a rumpled photocopied photograph of Professor Hojo and held it up so she could see. "Have you seen this man anywhere?"

Tifa blinked at it and laughed. "Yeah! I was at the bastard's funeral, if that's what you'd call it."

Sunder shook his head in frustration. "No...he's alive! My job is to find him. Please help me, miss! Any information you have will be of--"

Tifa shook her head and patted the young Turk on the shoulder. "Kid, I think you need to see through when your boss sends you out on wild goose chases."

Sunder smacked her hand away and ran off.

Tifa shrugged. "Crazy kid..."

Doctor Ihn looked at Yuffie and shook his head. "No response...that's odd..." He held up a picture of Cloud smiling goofily, and Yuffie produced no response. He held up a picture of a volcano, no response. A frozen lake...

Yuffie shivered. A cold spot developed in the room, and she started breathing harder, backing into a corner. She saw a soft pink glow in front of her and screamed.

Reeve ran to her, shaking his head. "Oh, no! No! Yuffie, what did you see? Did Cloud send his spirit out to get you?"

All Dr. Ihn could do was blink. "That's unusual. Her reaction to the frozen lake was more severe than the stupid Cloud picture. You said you found her kicked under the desk and raped, sirs?"

Reeve nodded. "Yes, that's what it looked like."

"And did you have her medically examined to tell if she actually WAS raped?" Dr. Ihn asked.

Reeve nodded. "Yes, we did that, too. That's what it was. Dr. Urodju, the gynacologist said it must have been...especially painful for her. Because there was unusual scarring found. Like frostbite or something... some device he may have used...oh, how awful!"

Barrett threw Reeve to the other side of the room before he could sob again and Yuffie grabbed his arm. Shivering, her eyes panicked, she looked up at Barrett pleadingly. Her breathing contained the faintest whine in it. And condensed in the air. Barrett shivered. Her hands were cold, and she was boring her little fingers into his arm. It wasn't a pleasent experience. "Damn, Doc, why's it so cold in hyah alla sudden?"

Doctor Ihn blinked. "Cold? Mr. Wallace, we've had the heat on all day. It IS almost winter, you know." The cold subsided and Yuffie's breathing returned to normal. She fainted in Barrett's arms and he picked her up. Dr. Ihn pushed up his glasses and frowned. "Are you sure you can take care of her?"

Barrett thought a while. "She freaks out every time she goes outside. Maybe it's best to keep her warm..."

Tifa just so happened to step into the room at that moment. "Guys?"

"Tifa! Where you BEEN?" Barrett asked.

"Barrett! How are you? I couldn't find you or Reeve anywhere these past few weeks."

Barrett stepped aside to reveal Reeve. "Well...looks like yo' doin' bettuh than -she- is..."

Tifa gasped when she noticed the small girl folded up in Barrett's arms. "Oh my God, Yuffie!"

Barrett shook his head. "She's blacked out. Apparently she freaks out every time she gets near anything cold."

Tifa recalled the water in the bathtub icing over the night she was reunited with Cloud and shuddered. "All this is my fault..."

Barrett put a hand on Tifa's shoulder. "Iss not all yo' fault."

"Yes it is...I let Cloud get all powerful. I never lifted a finger to stop his idiotic restrictions, policies, ...appetites...I wanted him to think of me for once instead of HER and it...it didn't work."

Dr. Ihn spoke up. "Excuse me, Mrs. Strife...but Yuffie's reactions to Cloud were rather minimal compared to the mere mention of cold. Maybe something other than you think happened happened."

Tifa closed her eyes. She would love to believe that Cloud hadn't done this to Yuffie, but there was no evidence to the contrary. He had been the only one in his office. There was even a recording of him calling her TO his office. It was too obvious. Everything pointed to Cloud. Everything. "This is not a matter to which wishful thinking can be applied, doctor," she replied at length. "At any rate...I'm through with Cloud. I put a request in for divorce this morning. It'll be about a week and a half before it's processed, though."

Reeve put his head down slightly. "I'm sorry, Tifa."

"Sorry for what, Reeve? This is the best thing for me. And Cloud. He doesn't have to pretend he loves me anymore," Tifa said quietly.

Dr. Ihn cleared his throat. "I think it'd be wise to remove myself now. I'd rather not end up being assaulted by tabloid reporters," he said, trying to add a little humor to the situation and failing. He stepped through the door and back to his office, as the former Avalanche stepped outside. 

Tifa looked around. The sky was darkening and a cold wind blew threw her hair. "She'll freeze if we keep her out here. Let's get to your house, Reeve," she said, leading them across the street.

"I wish I HAD one."

Tifa spun around. "What?"

"Spiky-ass dun sent some bulldozers on ovah to it yestuhday...Reeve had Marlene. He was babysittin' Yuffie." Barrett answered.

Tifa turned to Barrett. "You still have a house, right?" 

"Ah BETTAH!"

"OKay...where is it? We should get back home..."

"Wait, Tifa," Barrett said, pointing to the hospital, "mebbee we could hole up in da hospital, it might be bettah fo' her."

Tifa looked down at Yuffie and nodded. "Then it's back in the hospital we go," Tifa said, marching through the double doors after having Reeve pick up her briefcase.

Cloud stood on top of the roof, the cold wind rustling his hair. "Think they can take her away from me again, can they? Limited as they may be, I still have some uses for Tifa..." he told no one in particular.

A girlish laugh danced on the wind. Oh, but how you cling to her!

"Aeris...don't take it that way, please. Don't feel left out."

I have never felt left out of anything, Cloud. But tell me, Cloud, you did once love Tifa truly, did you not? I'd be glad to hear you say that, the ghost of Aeris requested.

Cloud shut his eyes tight against the cold the early winter winds brought about, magnified by the ghost's presence. "I... Why was I summoned to court the other day, Aeris?"

You're avoiding my question! she pouted.

"I'll answer it after you answer me this. Why did you tell me to bring Yuffie into my office that day? Everyone's accusing me of raping her, but they found no evidence of any kind of special device they said was used to do it with. What is going on, Aeris?"

Aeris' ghost glowed slightly green for a moment as lightning crashed. In that split second, she held up her arm, as the light flashed green, her fingers looked, for a moment, longer, jagged and clawlike. But that was only for a moment. Now, answer my question, Cloud. I'm losing my patience.

Cloud blinked. "Aeris...losing your patience!"

I was just as human as you were, once, Cloud. I DO have the ability to run out of patience, she told him, her voice becoming as cold as she was.

Lucrecia, who had been watching the entire scene from a radio tower, materialized just above their range of sensing. Cloud closed his eyes again and continued. "Yes. I do...did love Tifa...but that was only because I thought you were dead!"

Aeris grinned an un-Aerisly grin. Thank you, lover, she told him, vanishing.

Lucrecia smiled. Just like Vincent and I. I loved Hojo because I didn't know Vincent even existed. Now I know better, she said, following Aeris.

Cloud shuddered. Maybe...it wasn't always true love for Vincent and Lucrecia, then. I want to hear it from Hojo now, definately. I hope they find him soo-- his thoughts were cut off as his cell phone rang. "Yes, what is it? ... The bulldozers are ready again? ... Right, go ahead. ... Thank you."

"Reeve...Barrett...if you are not for me, you are against me..."

Marlene was sitting up in her room, which was decked to the point one could not see the walls in posters of Vincent Valentine. She was playing with her stuffed Vincent Valentine doll, listening to Vincent Valentine Karaoke-Volume #3. He was doing a cover of "Stand Inside Your Love" by a band Marlene had never heard of and didn't care to remember. It was the best R&B song she had ever heard.

Just outside her window, there was a rumbling. Marlene stood up to see what it was and screamed--a bulldozer was headed for her house!

The girl scrambled helplessly to take her favorite poster off the wall without ripping it, but didn't do a very good job of it. In a frenzy, she managed to escape the house with her doll before the bulldozer crunched into the side of the Wallace house.

"Daddy! Daddy!" the thirteen-year-old wailed, running into an alley as her house was demolished. "Ohh...! I wish I knew where him and Reeve and Yuffie were! Why didn't I listen! Wait...they never take Yuffie anywhere except the doctor's..."

Barrett was pacing the room they put Yuffie in when Marlene nearly fell into the door.

"PAPA!" she gasped, out of breath from running there.

"Marlene!"

Marlene clutched her Vincent stuffie doll and sniffled. The painted smile on it never faded. "Daddy, our house is done! The bulldozers got it!"

Barret blinked and slammed his gun-arm into the wall. "GOD -DAMMIT-!"

Tifa sighed. "I guess that rules out finding sanctuary there."

Reeve wailed. "NOW what do we do?"

Marlene joined him. "My posters! My CDs! My clothes! My makeup!"

Yuffie, who had only been diagnosed as having fainted, stirred at the big noise.

Tifa stomped her feet and waved her hands around to get everybody's attention. "People! People, PLEASE! We can't just stand around and wail at a time like this! I think I know someone who can help us."

Marlene sniffed. "Does he know Vincent?"

Tifa rolled her eyes. "I don't think he does, but that's not our biggest concern right now. We need a place to stay, and I think Stripes' house is big enough...I think."

"Stripes?" Barret asked.

Tifa nodded. "He's the guy I stayed with when I ran away."

"But I thought you were just wandering around and they caught you on the street," Reeve said.

"That's what the papers said. The Turks...well, Reno didn't turn him in. I think they're friends."

"Oh. So he friends wit da Turks, huh? What happens if he turns us in!" Barrett asked.

"He didn't turn -me- in," Tifa defended, "And, besides, I think Vincent has all the Turks off on a wild goose chase because Cloud thinks Professor Hojo's come back to life.

At the sound of 'Vincent' being spoken, Marlene's ears piqued. "What about Vincent?"

Reeve sighed. "Never you mind, Marlene."

"Ohhh!" she huffed in disoppointment.

"All right. Let's stick to the alleyways. We're going to Stripes'!" Barrett announced, leading the four of them out the door.

"Wait..." Yuffie whispered after them, sitting up. "Don't leave me...don't leave me alone..." 

Tifa was the first out the door. "Once we get there, I think it's best we--OOF!"

Tifa had been bumped into once again. It was a young man in a black cloak. He got up quickly, but his cloak came off. He looked to be about twenty, had dark grey hair and eyes like ice. Tifa stared at him for a moment, but he ran off without so much as an apology. "HEY! Kid, you forgot your...cloak. What a strange boy..."

As the young man ran off, Yuffie pushed herself out of the door and fell to the ground. "Take me...take me with you!" she cried, curling up into a little ball when she was hit with the cold of the outside. 

Reeve took a look at the cloak and set Yuffie on her feet. "This looks warm, and it's just about her size," he said, wrapping the young secretary in it.

Tifa blinked. That was the first time she had heard Yuffie speak in a long time. "I was saying, I think maybe I should go talk to Stripes before any of you do. I'll take Yuffie, though. He might get a little intimidated by the likes of you."

"Dassokay wit me," Barrett said.

The adjudicator of the entire world appeared before him once again, standing straight and tall: a piece of gothic architecture. "YOU ARE GETTING NOWHERE," he intoned, looking down at his 'charge' with the same eyes he himself possessed.

Stripes was on his knees, any indication that he had been fairly tall gone. He wrapped his arms around his knees and looked at the ground. "why would i -want- to go anywhere?"

"YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME. YOU ARE WASTING YOUR LIFE. YOU ONLY GET ONE LIFE, PROFESSOR HOJO."

"a life that i do not deserve."

The adjudicator circled him. "LOOK AT YOU. PROSTRATED ON THE FLOOR. LIKE A DOG. LIKE A BABY, WHINING FOR HIS MOTHER. IS THAT WHAT STRIPES IS?"

"... maybe now, yeah."

"YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN WHAT IT IS LIKE TO LIVE. YOU HAVE BEEN LET OUT OF HELL FOR A BRIEF MOMENT. ENJOY WHAT LITTLE YOU HAVE LEFT BEFORE RETURNING."

"if i even so much as move, it will condemn me. i have done too much damage. i owe so many so much. nobody really needs me. i'm just your average monster."

The adjudicator slammed his staff to the floor with a deafening boom. "WHERE DID YOU GET THIS WORD, MONSTER? YOU BELIEVE LUCRECIA EVEN AFTER WHAT SHE HAS DONE TO YOU? TOO KIND AND GENTLE TO FIGHT BACK? NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR YOU WHINE, YOU COWARD."

"excuse me?"

"COWARD."

Stripes unballed himself.

"FEELING SORRY FOR YOURSELF ACCOMPLISHES NOTHING. YOU WORRY ABOUT BEING A HYPOCRITE. YOU WORRY ABOUT DOING WORSE THAN YOU HAVE BEFORE. YOU WORRY AND WORRY AND WORRY, CURL UP AND CRY. WHERE HAS THAT GOTTEN YOU?"

Stripes frowned. "i'm only doing that because it's what you told me!"

"WHO AM I?"

"what?"

"WHO AM I? WHO AM I TO YOU?"

"you are the adjudicator of the entire world."

"NO. SUCH. THING."

He blinked and the adjudicator vanished. 

Someone was shaking him awake.

"--ipes!"

Stripes groaned.

"Stripes!"

He opened his eyes.

"Stripes!" Tifa called. She was dressed in a blue power suit and had tears streaming down her seemingly more haggard face.

"Tifa?"

"Oh, thank God! You're awake!"

"Why are you crying?"

"You were on the ground! It looks like you hit your head! I was so worried!"

Stripes sat up and felt the back of his head. It had a little bump. What was in that drink he had had last night? Or was it last night? Stripes shook his head. It didn't matter now. "What are you doing here, Tifa?"

Tifa stepped back and revealed a sort of sack wrapped in a black cloak. It inched forward. A person was underneath it. Stripes gasped and nearly jumped out of bed. _No, I thought they were dead...I thought they were dead!_

The sack moved forward again.

_Oh my God...it's...IT! I-I-it can't be...not Number Two...not Two, please not Two!_

Stripes recalled an experiment gone wrong in the cloning of Sephiroth. He had pricked his finger on a needle while extracting a DNA sample. Some of his blood got mixed in with Sephiroth's body fluid, but he hadn't noticed much. The clone that had come out of that sample was Number Two. Stripes recalled flipping up Two's hood for the first time, expecting to see a pair of lovely bright green eyes staring haplessly back at him, but instead being met with a pair of desolate and grey eyes, set in somewhat of a scowl directed at him. Long, stringy, ugly black hair hung in front of the rest of its face. He remembered bundling the child up, rushing to the dumpster and leaving it for dead. Such a creature wouldn't want to live. Half Sephiroth, half Hojo. Never.

Stripes shook his head and stepped back until he had plastered himself against the wall.

Tifa scratched her head and gave him a funny look. "Stripes? Something wrong?"

"Wh-what is that?" he whispered, pointing to the figure in the black cloak with a trembling hand.

"I didn't know where else to go to, Stripes. Can you help her?"

"Her?"

The figure in the cloak stood up to its full height, about an inch or two taller than Stripes was. He gulped and thought back on what the adjudicator had said. He was no different from what he was before he died. A sniveling coward when it came to anything at all that could possibly do him harm or had a grudge against him. He held his breath as Tifa unveiled the figure, expecting to see Number Two. An image of himself. His eyes, his hair, Sephiroth's build and a very noble grudge wedged into his soul. Stripes stopped trembling and composed himself, prepared for the worst.


	10. Chapter 10

A very frightened-looking brown-haired girl was revealed.

Stripes let out his breath in a gesture that was probably received as light-hearted exasperation, because Tifa put her hands on her hips and looked at him as if he had left the toilet seat up and hadn't taken out the garbage. "I -thought- I could come here to get your help, Stripes."

Stripes couldn't help but laugh, he was so relieved. He slid down the wall and ran his fingers through his hair, looking up at Tifa, a grin forming on his face. "You got it...hoo!"

Tifa didn't take well to Stripes laughing about such a serious matter and stamped her foot. "Stripes, Yuffie was raped by Cloud! That's nothing to laugh about!"

Yuffie looked up, as if to speak, a horrified expression on her face. She shook her head and backed away some more.

Stripes' good humor faded as he looked at the sullen former ninja. She hung her head, but looked up as he looked at her, her big, sane green eyes meeting his. They were sane...but dead.

Tifa would have allowed herself a satisfied smirk had this been any other situation. "Now do you understand?"

Stripes blinked. Staring back at Yuffie reminded him of what he saw when he looked in the mirror each day before he died. Dead eyes stared impartially back at him. Eyes...eyes...wait, Yuffie could see his eyes! So could Tifa...

(Dammit...my sunglasses!)

Stripes got up and reached for his sunglasses on the nightstand, putting them on.

Tifa blinked. Had these not been the same eyes the boy on the street with the cloak had had? She shook her head. "Please, Stripes. We need a place to stay. Barrett and Reeve have been taking care of her, and for that they lost their homes."

"Barrett and Reeve?"

Tifa made a hand motion and the hulking moor tromped in, followed by his daughter and his lily white friend.

"All five of you? I'm afraid this house isn't big enough, Tifa."

Reeve sat down and pouted. "Oh, I KNEW it!"

Marlene looked up at her father with gigantic teary eyes. "Daddy...?"

Barrett, Mr. Manners himself, stepped forward and picked Stripes up by the collar of his tank top. "Man, where else we gunna stay!"

"Sir, I'm not -trying- to complicate matters for you, honestly I'm not...it's just that I don't have enough space and I wouldn't trust your daughter in my supply rooms. Ed's Bar has a hotel attached to the top of it. I'm sure you'll have more than enough room for--"

"Yo, we'll be stayin' here for a WHILE! We ain' got no money fo dat!" Barrett bellowed, watching Stripes start to kick his legs.

"Daaaddy!"

"Barrett, put him DOWN!" Tifa demanded.

FLUMP.

"Honestly. Barrett, I have enough money in my briefcase for you to stay there until next YEAR," Tifa said.

"Well...okay," Barrett said.

Tifa shoved the briefcase into his hands with a reassuring smile and waved him goodbye.

Barrett nodded and he and Reeve stepped out of the room, taking Marlene's hand. Yuffie stayed in her spot, still catatonic. Stripes looked around after they were gone and stepped towards Yuffie. "Should we follow them and put Yuffie to bed at Ed's?"

Yuffie looked as if she wanted to speak, but she remained silent as ever, frightened.

Tifa looked at her, waiting for her to say something, but nothing came. The girl was scared of everything, it seemed. 

Tifa clenched her fists. (If only I hadn't...)

"I understand," Stripes said and backed off.

"I think I'll leave you two alone," Yuffie said, looking at the both of them with a twinge of disgust.

Tifa blushed as Yuffie walked out of the room, leaving the black cloak behind her. Stripes bent down to pick it up. "Where did you get this from?"

"A man on the street smashed into me and dropped it. Why?"

Stripes looked at the tattered robe and gulped. "What did he look like?"

"Actually, he looked more like a kid than a man. Maybe twenty years at most... but he had grey hair. It looked rather neat, actually."

"Do you remember anything else about him?"

"No, no, I can't...except...he had really piercing light blue eyes. Kinda like ice."

Stripes gulped. (Damn...Jesus, what now? Good thing I got scared before. I'd be a puddle right now if I wasn't. What do I do? What do I do? I can't ignore this...It won't blow over by itself. Oh, man--)

"Stripes?"

Stripes hadn't known he had started to pace, but he stopped and looked up at his friend. "Yes?"

Tifa stepped forward and hugged him. "Nice to see you again."

It had been a very very very long time since anyone had hugged him. Why was she hugging him? Did she know what he had done to her, recently or otherwise? Directly or indirectly? Of course not. She was hugging a reliable friend, compassionate and trustworthy, whom she had not seen in a long time. She wasn't hugging the man who created Sephiroth, or the man who took her husband's brain and twisted it into what it was now. Stripes smiled and hugged her back. (Maybe,) he thought, (maybe...Hojo really did die...five years ago.)

Tifa stood back and wiped her eyes, though still smiling. "You never died your hair, you liar!" she laughed.

"Sorry! I kept losing track of time...besides, I kind of like it, growing back like this, you know?"

Tifa managed a chuckle. "Looks like you've been able to work out more than I have, lately. You're in pretty good shape, Stripes!"

He blinked and came almost to the point of blushing. He hadn't noticed very much, but he was no longer as laughably scrawny as he used to be. "You look well taken care of as well, Tifa."

She laughed and looked down, patting her stomach. "Yeah, I guess I've become a bit flabby myself!"

Stripes gasped and thought back to what Lucrecia had seared his ears before: ...Ohh, I think I smell a child coming on!  
CHILD coming on!  
CHILD coming!  
HILD!  
ILD!  
LD!  
D!

"Stripes? Are you okay, you've gone all pale..."

Hojo regained his composure a bit and stepped toward her. "Have you been sick in the mornings lately?"

Tifa blinked. "No...why?"

Hojo began to circle her and felt her forehead with an unsteady hand. "Any irregularities in your menstrual cycle? Craving for strange foods?"

Tifa started to back away from him. "No...Stripes, what are you trying to ask me? This isn't like you. Just ask me!"

"Tifa..." Hojo gulped and stood back, ran a hand through his half-bleached hair, "y-you're not pregnant, are you?"

SLAP!

Stripes shook his head and blinked, putting his hand over the newly forming red mark on his face. "What did I say?"

Tifa was beet red. Stripes couldn't tell if it was more from anger or shame. Probably a combination of them both. "Why you...of all the...HOW DARE YOU ASK ME THAT!"

"You told me to!" Stripes replied, thinking maybe he should not have picked this time to get smart with her.

"UGH!"

"And you still haven't told me if you are or not..."

Tifa stepped forward and raised her arm again. She held it back for a moment as Stripes stared at her through his sunglasses, unmoving, somewhat proud, waiting for her answer to his question. Her hand wavered and she all but threw herself onto Stripes' shoulders, bawling. "No!" she sobbed. "Never!

Stripes stood, puzzling at the young woman in his arms. "Never? What...what do you mean? Tifa?"

After a series of intelligable sobs, Tifa finally managed to speak: "H-how do you think I've been able to sexually spoil Cloud so much that he would turn to anything warm...or cold...for ...for...Oh GOD! After five years, w-we still don't have any children? What do you think! Stripes...I...I'm barren! I-I've never been able to have children...I've always wanted to be a mother, b-but...but..."

As Tifa started to wail again, Stripes let out what he hoped to be percieved as a sigh of sympathy, but was also one of relief. He really did not want to deal with an element of his life like that again. No matter how dirty it got, no matter how much he convinced himself that he hated people, he never truly ever wanted to see his world destroyed. He went along with it because the only thing Hojo ever truly loved, his work, said it had to happen. He never dreamed of questioning. It was all he had...all he thought he had, anyway. He was too stupid, too narrow-minded to think otherwise.

"Stripes?"

Stripes opened his eyes. "Sorry. I didn't know."

"Why did you ask?"

Images of old Mako tanks, Lucrecia screaming as she gave birth, Number Two's eyes, Sephiroth's dead, blank face staring up at him flashed through his mind and he shuddered. (No more...) "J-just concerned, is all."

Tifa stepped back, wiped her tears, cocked her head and put her hands on her hips. "If I know you, that's not the bottom line. What are you hiding from me, Stripes?"

"Sorry. I was just thinking of my son...and my wife. I was just concerned. I really don't have the space for you to go popping kids out around here, you know? I thought Cloud would be so happy to see you back that, you know..."

Tifa frowned. "So did I. Say Stripes?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you believe in ghosts?"

Stripes felt something cold on his back. (Just in time, Lucrecia.) "Yes...why?"

"You're not going to believe this, but...a few weeks ago, I woke up to...Cloud making out... with Aeris...well, her ghost, at least."

Stripes cocked his head. "Air-iss?"

"Don't play dumb," she scolded, but her tone of voice quickly melted into sadness, "...Cloud always liked her better than me anyway. I shouldn't have even tried to think he'd ever change..."

"No...people do change, Tifa...why did you fall in love with him in the first place? He had to do something you liked."

"He joined SOLDIER to impress me...well, he tried to. For me. All for me. But he failed, and when Sephiroth burnt down Nibelheim, he and his friend Zack got shoved into Mako tanks like some stupid experiment, they escaped and Zack got killed. I guess...Cloud felt that he didn't deserve to live. Zack was first class, had something going for him, a girlfriend, a reputation. Cloud didn't even make it. His home was burned to the ground, he thought I was dead...everything he'd work so hard to build up was destroyed by Sephiroth. I guess he just couldn't reconcile the fact that Zack was dead, so he started pretending he WAS Zack just to keep him alive, because he felt Zack deserved to live more than he did. Aeris was Zack's girlfriend...so I guess...that went along with the pretending to be Zack package. It was foolish of me to think I could interfere."

(So...she doesn't blame me for him?) "No...you acted as any good childhood friend would have. How could you have known? He was the one who chose to remember. That's what messed him up. I think it's best just to let him be now. It's not your fault." Tifa looked up at Stripes and collapsed on his chest, bawling again. "You don't have to impress him anymore... he doesn't have to impress you anymore, kid. Nobody has to impress anybody anymore. You are all you'll ever truly have, and if you can't live with yourself because you can't meet someone else's standards, then that's a horrible waste, you know? Live for yourself."

Tifa looked up at him piteously and smiled. "Thank you, Stripes! I don't know what'd have happened if I'd never met you..."

Stripes gulped nervously. Was she blushing because of something he said to her? Ridiculous. ...was he blushing himself? "You're w-welcome!"

Tifa managed a chuckle and reached up to remove Stripes' sunglasses. Surprisingly, Stripes found himself allowing her to. She smiled as she looked up into his eyes and put her hand against the scars on the right side of his face and whispered, "If there was something I could say in reply to 'you're welcome,' I'd say it."

Tifa's face was getting very close to his. Very very close. Why was she doing this? Lucrecia scratched her etherial fingernails down his back as Tifa's brown eyes met his own icy ones and her lips touched his gently, for a split second. (Hojo, are you going to let her DO this to you?) "No!" he cried, pushing Tifa back. "You don't know what you're about to do, Tifa. Please. Don't...don't t--just don't!"

"I-I'm sorry...Jesus, I slipped up again! I'm always offending you, Stripes! I'm so sorry!"

"No, don't worry about me, Tifa. It's the other way around," Stripes shook his head, "I'm sorry. I should have told you."

"Stripes?"

"You remember that tattoo Cloud came in for?"

"Argh! YES!"

"Did it start...you know...glowing Aeris' name?"

"Yes, it did...but...I thought that was the ghos--STRIPES!

He hung his head. "I'm sorry. He asked me to do her name in the phosphorescent ink over yours."

"Why you...WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME!"

"Because..." Stripes said slowly.

Tifa threw her hand back to slap him again...

"Because I didn't want to be the one to upset you like that. I think you didn't fully understand your situation. You needed to go back to Cloud to understand exactly what was happening here.

SLAP!

"Who the Hell do you think you are! I didn't have to go through all THAT to...to learn what he was up to! Gawd, Stripes! How could you do something so cruel! I thought you were my friend!"

"I can't protect you from everything! Sometimes you need to go through these things to--"

"You said your wife was unfaithful to you...I wonder why it was that she cheated."

Stripes wasn't going to stand for this. "Now listen here, Tifa, that is NONE of your business! It's got nothing to do with you at all!"

"Oh it doesn't? Here. Here's your stupid sunglasses back!" she threw them at his head and they bounced to the floor, cracking one of the lenses. "Now I know why you hide those beautiful icy eyes--they're a reflection of what's truly in your heart!"

Tifa turned and stomped out of his bedroom, crying again. "Tifa! Wait!"

Lucrecia materialized, laughing. That was wonderful! HAHAHAHA!

Stripes bent down and picked his sunglasses up without a word.

Payback! HA!

"Payback for what?"

Letting me die...destroying Vincent...your petty little revenge thing.

"All right. Consider yourself avenged and go away."

No. I want to see what you're going to do to him THIS time!

"I already told you that I don't care about him, whether he lives or dies, I don't care and I'm not going to do anything to him, okay?"

Sure. Right. Why don't you just tell me your plan alread--

There was a few consecutive thumps and a Tifa-sounding little shriek from downstairs. Stripes looked up and ran out of his room. Tifa was slumped over at the bottom of the stairs. It looked as if she'd tripped and fallen. Stripes passed through an unfamiliar cold presence as he ran down them to help his friend out. "Tifa, are you all right?"

Tifa groaned and shook her head as she got to her feet. She felt her forehead and found she had a nasty cut from hitting her head. She had flipped once while coming down the stairs. She looked at Stripes grudgingly and shrugged his arm off. "I'm not going to explain this cut to Barrett, you know."

She let Stripes see it and he ran his fingers over it apologetically, wiping off most of the blood with his striped forearm. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

With a now only half-look of hatred, Tifa turned and walked out the door. Stripes turned to walk up the stairs and saw the ghost of Aeris smiling insanely down at him. 


	11. Chapter 11

_What are you doing on my property?_ Stripes thought, narrowing his eyes at Aeris' ghost. She had stopped laughing, but now fixed him with a creepy sort of leer. _I highly doubt that you are who you pretend to be._

You were always a smart one, weren't you, Yuto? 

_And you must be pretty special to know my old first name like that_. 

Old first name. How cute. Looks like you really are trying to step beyond Hojo. _She_ would be proud of you. 

She_, eh? I take it you mean Jenova?_

Aeris' smile widened. Sure, whatever you say. 

Before Stripes could protest, she was gone. "Dammit..." He looked back down the steps. The first floor was black, except for the faint green glow of the mako-polluted pipes. Too much had just happened at once. He needed a break. And he needed to talk to someone honestly for a change. Someone who wasn't connected with any of this drama. He only knew of one person that could do this. 

Tifa found the rooms Barrett, Marlene and Reeve had holed up in and made a grand entrance, making sure they could see her cut. Barrett looked up indifferently and waved. "Hey, how's mah baby there? Talkin' to yo' friend?"

Tifa blinked. It wasn't like Barrett to not notice personal injuries. Once she got a paper cut while visiting Johnny and the next day, the poor lad had been put in traction. "Oh...nothing happened. I just fell down the stairs afterward, is all." An excuse he'd never believe.

Barrett nodded his head and looked her over. "Glad you ain' scratched up. That Stripes seems like a nice guy. Takes care o' you bettah dan Cloud, come to thinkka it. You was right. I ovahreacted."

Tifa blinked again. She found the bathroom in the room and looked at her forehead in the mirror. There was nothing there, except for a tiny smudge of dried blood. No scar, no nothing. She looked at her hand. There was no blood on it except underneath her fingernails. What was going on here?

Lingering by the sea, Stripes watched the waves roll back and forth along the shore. He closed his eyes, and sat down on the sand. It was just beginning to get warm when he crawled out of the sea, barely human again. He closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind for the warm presence he had been in the company of before emerging from the sea. He had convinced himself that it had been JENOVA, but after that last bout with Aeris' Ghost, he wasn't so sure anymore. He had known JENOVA to absorb and combine herself with host DNA, but never to heal. He'd discovered that he had the power a while back, and that maybe it had developed as a result of him needing it, but there was something a little too suspicious now. 

_Hey...HEY...are you still out there?_

Stripes must have sat there for fifteen minutes before reaching out again. He was fucking freezing now. _Shouldn't have sat down..._

_HELLOOO?_

AHA! So you LIED to me about JENOVA being out of the picture! 

Stripes jumped up and frowned with his jowels. "Jesus Christ, Lucrecia, don't you have anything better to do?" 

Lucrecia adjusted her ghostly self indignantly. I knew you were going to put the planet in jeopardy again! 

"Great, look, why don't you tell that to 'Aeris' and she'll push Cloud out into the open and we can have a battle to the death and everything will be okay?" Stripes retorted, making sure to use lots of flamboyant hand gestures. 

Listen, I know when you're plotting, Hojo! Don't think I'm going to turn my back on this! 

Stripes threw his arms down in frustration. "Lucrecia, can you stop acting like a cartoon character for just ONE second?" 

**Please...**

Stripes and Lucrecia stopped in mid-bicker as a blue circle of light formed on the water. Lucrecia found herself unable to move, and Stripes' pants were miraculously dry again. That was the voice they had both come to know as JENOVA's. 

**This is all just a big, terrible misunderstanding!**

Stripes walked toward the circle of light. It was pretty far out. But he stopped as he saw the ghostly blue form of JENOVA appear on the water above the circle. "You're not JENOVA..." Lucrecia floated back down to the ground and let her feet, as they were, touch the sand. Stripes looked back at her. "I KNOW you can feel this, too, Lu." 

Lucrecia blinked and folded her arms across her chest, frowning, but not protesting. 

'JENOVA' began to flicker out, and Stripes plunged into the water towards her. "Wait!" 

But it was too late... 

Stripes turned to look back at Lucrecia, but she was gone, too. 

"Fuck." 

Stripes sloshed back to the shore, the cold air stinging him once again. He squinted at something shiny and black on the shoreline. Once he was out of the water, he discovered that it was a pair of sunglasses. He picked them up, shook the sand off of them, and put them on. 


	12. Chapter 12

Vincent himself was wondering how he allowed himself to become so soft. It wasn't good for him, and he had known it. Stupid Lucrecia. Why had she come back to haunt him now that he had himself firmly secure in his rut? He could have led a happy frivolous, uneventful life if she hadn't resurfaced. She had sliced open a dreadful wound that had nearly killed him once. 

Why now?

He was thoroughly enjoying himself the way he was now.

Lucrecia materialized through the mirror, slightly blotting out Vincent's favorite image. She had not come at the right time. He contorted his face into an unbecoming frown and, without a word, stomped out of the bathroom.

Lucrecia was hurt. What's wrong, my soul?

Vincent was sitting on his bed, pouting like a little boy. "Go away."

Lucrecia floated to be in front of the face she had loved so well...a face that now had a few dark circles, but was still handsome as ever. Vincent turned away every time she got in front of him. Vin--

"Are you deaf? I don't want to talk to you!"

Lucrecia blinked back tears. Wh-why not?

"I got over you. Like you asked me to. And now you're just tromping your way back in? Dammit, Lucrecia, don't you know what you want!"

I...thought I could talk to you for comfort. I guess I was wrong, she said, starting to cry.

Vincent closed his eyes. He used to spring up and want to kill the reason why she was crying. He guessed she was still used to this. He rolled his eyes. "Wait."

Lucrecia's ghost turned around hopefully, smartly, brightly, beautifully. The only things that had really mattered back then. What did they mean to him? Yes?

"Am I Sephiroth's father?" he asked gloomily.

Hojo rais--

"Am I Sephiroth's sire?" he asked, a tinge of exhaustedness in his voice.

No loophole. Yes...

"GOD DAMMIT! Then everything I mourned about, everything I felt sorry for causing during that time was TRUE! I DID deserve to be in that fucking coffin!"

Lucrecia faltered. I'm sorry... she said at length.

Vincent was angry. Very, very angry.

Scientists, for all their smarts, were the stupidest people he ever met.

"Why did he TELL me he was his father?"

Because he brought him up. He always wished the child was his. He was drunk. He was pathetic.

"Then why didn't you set him straight? Me straight? Haven't you been watching me become..." at his current loss for words, he pointed an accusing finger at a teenie bopper poster of himself he had ripped out and posted on the wall, "...this!"

Lucrecia looked at the floor. I had never known you to be wrong. I thought you knew what you were doing.

Vincent grabbed his hair and suppressed a scream. "LUCRECIA! Dammit, I'm not a god! I'm not perfect! What made you think I ever was! I'm a human, God dammit! HUMAN!"

If he could have, he would have shaken her by the shoulders. Lucrecia blinked. God? That's something for simple people to explain the rain and why their dogs die to their children. True perfection can be achieved on earth, and you are it! Be proud!

Vincent let his good hand slide down his face in exhaustion and sighed. Tears started to well up behind his eyes. Fans of his surely believed what she had said about him being perfect. That was all right by him. He would never see them again. They made no profound impact on his life. But his first fan, one whom he thought better than himself once...she thought that about him that way? Was content to watch him turn into a popular icon? Someone, whose class of people looked down on anything pop culture in favor of their microscopes. 

He had done some thinking the other day and decided that the Media was a monster. And a liar. He was the face of that monster now. How could she love that monster? That monster was worse than Hojo's terminal case of unenlightenment. Unenlightenment? He remembered some of the letters his fans wrote, their screaming faces...Vincent was the flagship of the army that spread unenlightenment!

"This is too much," he stammered, letting his claw slide down his face.

What did I say?

"TOO MUCH! Perfection on earth! How do you think that makes me FEEL? How am I expected to keep this up! I'm HUMAN, God dammit, God damn YOU, I make mistakes!"

But--

Vincent slashed his claw at her. The ghost evaporated slightly, but didn't move. "Just leave me alone! I couldn't be yours if I wanted to live, I can't be the people's if I want to be myself, and I can't be myself with your damn fool clipboard hovering over me documenting me like some sort of perfect lab animal! God, I hate you and your STUPID religion!"

Religion? No. Science isn't a--

"All of you idiots seem to act like it is. Taking things apart and gluing them back together...thinking there is no power greater than yourselves...how can you live like that? Arrogant strutting muddy self-loathing, cowering snivelling PEACOCKS! Anyone who uses their own imagination to explain anything is automatically a cave man to you people! What happened to stuff being magical? Had to dismantle it, explain it, package it, sell it to the masses like some kind of thaumic candy!"

What are you talking about?

"I don't know!" Vincent cried, putting his claw on his forehead. "I don't know anything anymore! Just leave me alone! That's all you've ever done. You're good at it. Stay that way."

Are you trying to force your religion on me?

"Are you trying to force your lack of religion on me?

NO!

"There you have it. I bet you tried to when you died, didn't you...but no. It didn't last. It was a fad. I was a fad. I am a fad. And how does this fad feel? Damn fucking horrible! Do you know how that makes me feel?"

No...

"Do you know what I should do next?"

Don't you?

"NO, because I'm not God! You're not helping me at all, Lucrecia Hojo!"

Don't! Never call me that! Never! she cried.

"Hide from your past, but it's still there. That's no way to live. Face your past...accept it...then you might be able to live with yourself. And you are still alive. Jenova's still got you hooked up somewhere to something."

Jenova is...dead, she lied, meeting Vincent's gaze uneasily, Hojo's taken her place.

"Then why don't you ask him to let you go? I'm sure he's dying to! I know -I- would if you treated -me- like you treat -him!- Just go away!"

No! I still want to help you!

"You're not helping me! You fawn, you praise, you tell me he's alive, but you can't tell me where he is. You're not helping! You're making me worse!"

I would if I could! I'm trying to! Hojo is-- Lucrecia's ghost mouthed the word 'Stripes.'

"He mutes you every time you try to say it. Heh. If this wasn't so grisly, I'd think it would be amusing. Or maybe he's not conciously muting it. Maybe you can't bring yourself to tell me...because underneath everything horrible he's ever done to you, there is a fine, shining gold wire of faithfulness still in you."

NO!

Vincent closed his eyes and smirked. "I admire it."

Lucrecia stopped dead, blinking. That's -not- how it is. 

"Or so you'd have the world believe. But I know you better than that, Lucrecia Hojo. If you never had any love for him, as you say, then you would have never been Lucrecia Hojo. I used to envy the way you looked at him, at first. When I saw the two of you stroll into Nibelheim, arm in arm on that first day there..." he reminiced, tilting his head upward. "Both of you looked so clean and polished. Hojo had this big 'I know more than you do' attitude and you were only slightly behind him, looking at him as if he were some sort of movie star. The other Turks thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen. I was too busy feeling that Hojo didn't appreciate you to enjoy that little moment."

Lucrecia looked down, the beginnings of realization stirring in her mind. He was many things...scared...arrogant...impatient...too proud...unable of successfully communicating anything...but...he wasn't...he wasn't unappreciative. At least...for the first four years. She felt the burn of jealousy within her once again after the encounter at the beach.

Vincent blinked. "So, you're finally realizing that now? You can't very well carve a whole five years out of your life and pretend it didn't mean anything. Especially if it was around 25 of your life."

Lucrecia shook her head. I...I'm sorry, Vincent. Hojo was waiting for me to do something I had no idea I was supposed to do. So, I never did it. We both got distracted too much. I got distracted by you...and Hojo got distracted by... she couldn't finish her sentence. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. (God...this must have been how HE felt about me and Vincent. He couldn't even say his name.) Oh, God...

Vincent was absolutely sure that she knew what was going on now. He tried to keep from smiling. "Glad you finally figured it out."

And I...our sons...I never got to hold either of our sons...not your son...not his son...oh, God!

Vincent sobered and looked down. "So Sephiroth was mine after all..."

I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done anything... Now look at this place... this city, this planet...it's completely trashed...and it's my fault...

"It's not a good idea to say things like that. You had no idea what would happen. Neither did I, and least of all, Hojo. It's no one person's 'fault.' There's no point in pointing fingers, because it's happened. Nobody can fix what happened. Maybe in a parallel universe, it might have happened a different way because one of us was a little more enlightened, but this is -our- universe. And it happened -this- way."

Lucrecia shook her head. Ohh, all three...four of us are going to burn in Hell for the longest time!

"Hell is something you make for yourself. I realized this about five years ago. If you keep feeling bad for yourself, nothing will be made better. Ever. Not like that. The best thing to do is move on. Because if everything turns into a sin, you'll be too busy hating yourself to correct what you want to correct," Vincent told her, trying his best not to cry. "But if you can't get past that..."

If you can't get past that, everything turns to...to shit. Vincent blinked. He had never heard Lucrecia curse, except when she was damning her husband. She continued: The world is not such a beautiful place if what you worked for, what you really wanted, you let go because you found something else to occupy yourself with momentarily. To give up all you were building toward for a fling, and then planning to build the rest of your life on that fling... An image of Hojo and Jenova flashed in her head, followed closely by the almost exact same image of her and Vincent. She gasped. Hojo...I'm sorry. Vincent...I'm sorry...I'm sorry I lead you on like that. Aa...I'm so sorry!

As she started to cry, Vincent nodded. "I'm so glad to see you realize what you're doing now. I must admit, I wasn't so clear-minded myself on the subject at that time either. But I forgive you. Although it's not my forgiveness you would be better off seeking right now."

Lucrecia nodded quietly, vanishing.

Sunder staggered through the streets. He had been running around for a week without shelter or change of clothing. He had sacrificed his well-being unnecessarily and it was taking its toll. Valiantly stumbling around gained him absolutely no credibility. The other Turks had done their duty by posting up flyers around the city of Junon, but Sunder was determined to capture the scientist himself. Going beyond and above the call of duty. Yeah. That would get himself noticed. That would make them proud.

Lucky for him, he stumbled his last steps upon the steps of a friendly home. Building. Newspaper headquarters. Junon Times. It was many different things to many different people. But to Sunder, it was a pillow for now.

As his head hit the pavement, it began to drizzle.  
Then the raindrops became bigger  
And bigger...  
Soon, the storm was a full-blown hurricane.   
Sunder didn't notice that he was floating away from the steps of Junon Times. He was unconcious from his concussion. 

Lightning crashed.

A figure in a black cloak followed the young Turk as he floated down the river that Main Street had been transformed into. It followed until the boy crashed into the door that led to the elevator to Old Junon and the AVALANCHE officer barracks. It sloshed through the street and picked up the boy with the ease of a pebble, plodding back to Junon Times.

The wind blew back the figure's cowl, presenting a young man in his late twenties. He had balls of ice for eyes, and his hair was dark grey, cut off two inches below the ear, starting to curl under at the ends. Lightning crashed again, and his eyes lit up mako green as he opened the gigantic double doors of his home--the Junon Times, carrying the unconscious Turk in his arms. 


	13. Chapter 13

Early in the morning about a week later, Tifa walked into the alleyway, passing Stripes' place on the way. She looked up to see if he was in his window, watching her. He wasn't.

He was on the roof watching her.

Stripes sighed to himself, his boot propped up on the roof, gazing down at her through his sunglasses. He waved to her, but he knew she couldn't see him. She didn't need to deal with him right now. There was a divorce settlement to take care of...and a little bit of re-management to be done at AVALANCHE Headquarters.

Do I like her? Stripes thought to himself. She's all business when she puts her mind to it, not very feminine except for in form, and not too bright. Heh. The other one was a little too bright for me, I suppose... I guess...maybe I like her because I like her. No...what kind of reason is that? But people have supposedly fallen in love for less-backed reasons. ...and have had their relationships go up in flames... he sighed and shook his head. I don't ever want to go through that again. Do I like Tifa because I think she'll never screw me over like Lucrecia did? Or is it...I like playing the part that Turk was playing? I don't know. Well...she probably won't get a chance to show me why...or if...I love her until she starts to hate me.

Stripes sighed again and pushed his stupid stringgy bangs back from his forehead. Something he never dared do before he died, as his forehead used to be twice the size that it was presently. When Tifa rounded the corner, he put his hands over his head and laughed to himself. "Set your goals a little too high this time, eh? Hah...forget it. She's out of your league..."

He paused, putting his hand to his chin. Yes, but wasn't that the same thing you thought about every woman you've had an interest in? SHE almost kissed YOU last week, remember?

The wind whistled through the city, blowing Stripes' hair to the side and making the maroon silk shirt he was wearing over his wifebeater ripple semi-majestically.

It was a cold wind.

Lucrecia was perched on her radio antenna, about 30 feet above the city. She could see everything from there. It feels as if I'm finally able to see everything now. I understand. Hojo... Is it too late for you...is it to late for me? Is it too late for us? she thought, following the little maroon dot who sat through high school admiring her from a distance, finally getting up the courage to ask for a dance at their senior Prom night...

Stripes jumped onto the roof of the next building and walked parallel to Tifa. He knew she was beginning to sense him around her. He followed her down to Junon's main street and jumped off the roof into an alleyway, landing squarely on his feet. He shoved himself out into the street behind her with a grunt. "Ugh...watch where you're going, asshole!"

Lucrecia watched Stripes match Tifa's pace with increasing dispair. She flew closer to them, just out of the range she thought he could sense her.

Tifa blinked and turned around to Stripes rubbing his shoulder and glaring at the imaginary assailant. "Stripes! W-what are you doing here?"

"Stalking you," he said cheerfully, smiling.

Tifa managed a sideways grin and folded her briefcase up against her chest. "I'm...sorry I yelled at you last week, Stripes."

"It's all right. I'm sort of used to it by now," he said, tight-rope walking along the curb. A car whizzed by, nearly removing him of his left arm. The driver honked his horn at him and Stripes smiled, skipping along the sidewalk, chuckling to himself. Heh...Scarlet's boyfriend...number seventeen, he recalled.

Lucrecia watched calmly.

Tifa gulped and held her suitcase tighter. "You really shouldn't have to get used to things like that, you know. I truly am sorry for last week, Stripes."

"I believe you," Stripes said innocently, doing a cartwheel and rubbing the grime off his hands.

Tifa turned around and walked backwards. "My, you're spry today..."

Stripes gave her a wink, accompanied with a grin the Wolf gave Little Red Riding Hood. "Think it might have been something I ate for breakfast. Maybe just enjoying being a young man agai--just kind of..." he shook his head. "I had a cup of tea this morning. It's got more caffeine in it than coffee."

Tifa smiled, then all pretense of genial demeanor left her. "Stripes, what happened to me that night? I fell down the stairs and...I got cut...didn't I?"

Stripes' grin faded as well. "I'm sorry you did. It doesn't look so bad today, though."

"Probably because it stopped existing between the time I left and the time I got to my room at Ed's," she said, giving him a suspicious look.

Stripes folded his arms over his waist and cocked an eyebrow. "Are you accusing me of healing you, Miss Lockheart?"

"Accusing you of--" she stopped. "Wait a second, what am I thinking? Who in the world BLAMES another person for relieving their pain? Well...did you do that?" Tifa faltered.

"Do what?"

Tifa shoved him back a little with a grin. "Did you rid me of that cut I got?"

"...Yeah. I'm sorry."

Tifa smiled. "D...don't be sorry, Stripes. I'm the one who should be sorry. I yelled at you..."

Stripes shook his head. "Hey. You had a good reason to. I should have told you about that stupid scribble on Cloud's arm. I really should have. But I didn't. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't want to talk to me ever again."

Tifa shook her head. "No. I realized that...that everything you've done, you've done to help me. I'm sorry I was too thick-headed to realize it at first."

The couple stopped at a corner. Heavy traffic flooded the street, despite it being seven o' clock in the morning. Tifa put down her briefcase and put her arms around Stripes' slender waist. "WOAH!"

Lucrecia hung her head.

"I'm sorry if I'm offending you, but I--"

Stripes pushed her gently away and kissed her hand. "Listen. You don't know what you're getting yourself into, Tifa. You don't know who I am, or where I come from, or even my last name. And I don't think you want to know. I don't even have the right to stand in your presence from what I've done to you in the past."

Tifa blinked. "Continue."

"I...don't think we should discuss this in public. But, I will tell you this. I died five years ago. If you want to know anything more, I beseech you, PLEASE think it over before you see me again. You know where my house is."

"Stripes, you didn't have to tell me anything about who you WERE. It's who you ARE, right here, right now, that I'm in lo--"

Stripes put his hand over her mouth, a hurt expression on his face. "You would never say that if you knew who I really was, Tifa. And I think I need to tell you about what I was...because a...a relationship is built on trust. I want you to know the truth about me. After I tell you, you can hate me all you want. You can deny that I am not who I say I am for a thousand years, and it won't make a difference. You can turn me into the Turks, or Cloud, or anyone."

"Why? Why do you trust me with something like that?"

"Because I l...no. No, I'm...I...I-I can't say that until you know who I am. I trust you, I respect you. I like you, Tifa Lockheart. A lot. You are...ten times all the friends I ever thought I had before I died. You're a good person. And I'm sorry that I'm the one that got you into the mess you're in now."

Tifa blinked as Stripes turned around and ran back to his house. The light grey sky rumbled, and the wind blew through her hair. "Stripes...why does it matter so much?"

Lucrecia stood in the same place she had been, not caring that it had started to rain. Not caring that Stripes ran right past her and didn't notice.

She began to follow him back to his house, and as he crossed the street, the early morning bus shot past behind him. Lucrecia's image flickered faintly through half a dozen commuters, but only one person noticed her. Hojo! Hojo, come back! Come back! I'm here! Hojo! Tell me everything! Tell me! I'll listen! I promise!

The young man with dark grey hair and icy eyes pulled his black shroud closer to him for warmth, smiling at her.

Stripes paced the bar as Rude, Reno and Elena looked at him funnily. "What if she comes tonight and I'm in here? Is my hair straight...are my sunglasses dark enough?" were among several of his nervous mutterings.

Elena giggled and Reno cocked an eyebrow. "What's with HIM?" the red-haired Turk asked.

Rude sat up from his beer and replied to Reno's inquiry with severe solemnity. "That's not exactly the question. The proper thing to ask is: 'What's NOT with him?'"

Reno blinked, dumbfounded. "Huh?"

"Stripes likes Tifa and he's going to tell her tonight or whenever," Rude said gloomily, sipping his beer through a festive pink curly straw.

"OH!" Reno said, perking up. "Aww...poor Rude. You still like Tifa, don't you?" he continued, buffing his colleague's head with his sleeve sympathetically.

Rude slurped morosely and groaned. "No...no, not really. It was only really a half-assed crush. That's all it was."

"Then how come you're so down in the mouth, Rude?" Elena asked.

"I'm venting," the bald Turk said, taking a nice, long slurp and directing it at Stripes, obviously oblivious.

Reno blinked anxiously. "Maybe you should vent somewhere else, like, maybe possibly out of visual range of the person you're mad at?"

"NO."

Reno gulped, and Rude went back to slurping at his pink straw.

Tifa gazed at her divorce papers and grinned mischeviously. She stuffed them in her briefcase and waked briskly to the AVALANCHE Building.

She posted several notices in all the women's bathrooms, each reading somewhere along the lines of this:

ATTENTION FEMALE EMPLOYEES OF AVALANCHE:  
Please evacuate the area around Cloud Strife.  
His ex-wife has foolishly turned him into a crazed  
nymphomaniac.  
Monsieur Le Presidente has brutally beaten, raped, and  
mentally scarred his secretary, Miss Yuffie Kisaragi.  
It is advised that you stay more than 200 feet away from  
Mr. Strife at all times.  
This notice is being posted for your personal safety,  
and even though it may look like a prank, it is most definately  
not one.  
Thank you for your time,

Tifa Lockheart  
Former Wife of AVALANCE Inc.'s Chief Executive Officer.

Stripes had finally retired to the bar and was once again pulled into a card game with the Turks. Rude was winning. And quite proud of that fact, since they were playing for real money this time. Stripes had lost his last Heidegger series 5000 gil bill to him. He resented that. Those were rare. But not as rare as the Gast series tuppence coin. Or the Hojo series 2000 gil bill, which he had stashed away in the bottom of his wallet, poised to be the first element in Tifa's history lesson, if she was to come by this evening or the next.

After cleaning out his three companions, Rude shoved his drunken self over to the pinball machines and spent half his loot. After losing 100 consecutive games, Rude gave up on the pinball machines and sloshed his way back to his comrades and Stripes' table, losing all the money he won back to them. Stripes was a gracious winner, though. He let Rude keep the Heidegger series 5000.

Rude had finished venting for the night, but he most certainly wasn't done drinking. Halfway into the night, he shook hands with Stripes. "Yer mah friend, Stripes," he slurred.

Stripes cleared his throat and nodded. "You've been more than helpful on more than one occasion, Rude. Thank you."

"An' I dun mind you takin' careo Tifa. Iz jes fine with me. Cos I trusts ya, Schtripes...:hic:..."

Stripes sunk till his head was on the table, mortified despite his blood alchohol level. "Rude...Tifa and I aren't..."

"Hell, Stripes, iss obvious the way you feel about her. The way you look at her when she's not looking...and the way she looks at you when you're not looking. She really likesh you. You guyshe have wunnerful kemischtry. It'sch like, God took Her leggos and built the two o' ya for each other, ya know?" Reno interjected. Stripes was purple with mortification by now. Reno continued: "But I guess She went a lil overboard on the...you know...heh heh."

"Hey, She's God, I dun keshtion His motives...even if it DOES end up with her bein' kinna dishperperperortionate," Rude said.

"Poor chick. Thass gotta be painful for her back. She'sh an anotomikakkal mishap," Reno drawled, raising his glass, "Here's to God. He's a cool Guy."

Rude raised his glass, and he and Reno interlocked their elbows, quaffing the :P Beer down.

Reno wiped his mouth off on his sleeve and giggled. "You be sure to tell me if they're real or not, okay, Schtripes?"

Stripes closed his eyes and shook his head. All he saw was Lucrecia. He mooshed his face with his hand and shot an unimpressed look at the Turk. "Cut it out, Reno. It's not like that."

Elena had been looming over them for most of their conversation and whapped both of their heads with a rolled-up newspaper. "LISTEN to you! Jesus, you BOYS sometimes!"

"What? We're complementing Tifa!" Reno said with a smile, holding up his glass, "Cos she's a cool guy, am I right, Stripes?"

Stripes wasn't in the mood to drink anymore. Why did I tell Tifa that? I -don't- love her. She's my friend. A very dear friend. I was only trying to help her. I care about her, but not like that. She's...she's entirely too young for me, too. I think of her more like a daughter or a niece than... I can't even imagine us that way. The only person I've ever imagined that way was--

"Yeah! Hey, I think we should form a little group here. How about we all Turks here form an alliance, side with Tifa? In case she tries to take over AVALANCHE? Pertect her from Clod? Help 'er build a perdy future? Eh? Sound good?" Rude suggested.

Reno nodded and held up his glass.

Elena folded her arms. "Isn't stuff like that that starts Trojan Wars?"

"Not th' kind I'm thinkin' of," Reno giggled.

Elena punched him in the head and swirled her :P with her finger. Rude came to his best friend's rescue. "Nono, Elena-dear. The Trojan war started cozza a buncha Greek guys pledged their loyalty to Helen, and they would stan' by whoever one ovvem got her hand in marriage an' pertect her from schtuff. Then da Trojan dude stole 'er an' everybody went ta war."

Elena folded her arms. "Doesn't sound too different from what you're proposing."

Rude patted his head. "Damn, yer a surly drunk, Elena."

"Haha...hey, Stripes, wanna be one of us, too?" Reno asked.

Stripes blinked. His friends in blue uniforms were smiling, waiting for an answer. Blue uniforms. How long ago was it that I brainwashed myself into hating people in that uniform? It doesn't matter anymore that they're Turks. They're not just some Turks. They're Rude, Elena and Reno. And they're my friends. He smiled. "Here's to starting the Iliad all over again."

And the merriment and drunkenness continued throughout the night...

Sunder woke to the view of a balding, grey-haired, plump little man in an accountants' visor. He blinked.

The man grinned. "There we are, son...whassyer name, kiddo?"

"S-s-sunder, sir. My name's Sunder Marigasco. Rookie Turk. C Block, Junon."

"You've been out cold all day," the old man said.

"Who...are you? Where am I?" Sunder asked

The man held out his hand. "Kingsley. You're here at the headquarters of Junon Times. Timothy found you on the stairs last night, passed out."

"Timothy?" Sunder blinked. Kingsley pointed upwards and Sunder tilted his head back. Clinging like a spider to the roof was a young man, just a little older than Sunder himself, with longish, dark grey hair, drawn back into a ponytail. Sunder could have sworn that if the color of his eyes were any paler, they'd be white. He gulped. The young man made no sound, nor twitched a muscle. If Kingsley hadn't pointed him out, Sunder could have gone days without even noticing him. "Timothy, why don't you say hi to Sunder?"

"Hi to Sunder," Timothy replied, deadpan.

Sunder blinked. This was the man that saved him, but he had a very bad feeling about him. "Will you see to it that Sunder gets something to eat, Timothy?"

Timothy nodded.

"Good. I have some work to do, Sunder. The bathroom's on the right. Once you think you're strong enough, go wash up, put these clothes on and Timothy will show you to dinner," Kingsley said, pointing to a neatly folded stack of clothes on the end table as he left.

Sunder laid back and stared up at Timothy. Timothy stared back with his icy eyes. Icy eyes... Sunder thought, recalling his mission for the Turks. Recalling the picture of Hojo Sargent Valentine had posted up for Mr. Strife. Icy eyes! Sunder opened his eyes wide, half out of fright, half out of anticipation. "IT'S YOU!"

Timothy gasped as Sunder fumbled for his gun and pointed it at him. He pursed his lips and his heart beat faster. "Kingsley...come back!" he whispered, so softly that not even Sunder heard him.

BANG!

There was a loud crash, and Kingsley waddled as fast as he could back into the room he had left Sunder in and looked around. Both Sunder, Timothy, and the dry clothes were gone. "What was that? Sunder? Timothy!"


	14. Chapter 14

Tifa passed by Stripes' on her way to Ed's from the bathrooms of the AVALANCHE building, rushing for the door, but found it dark. She took her hand off the doorknob and walked into Ed's.

He didn't notice her walk in. He was stilll playing cards with the Turks. Elena saw her, though, and waved. Tifa shook her head, and Elena stopped. Tifa walked up the stairs and leaned on the banister, gazing down at Stripes. She saw him at an odd angle, but it was better than nothing. Oh, look. He finally cut the blonde parts of his hair off...Did he do it for me? Probably not. I'm glad he did, though. Someone that Wutain-looking was never meant to be blonde. :sigh: Do I really like him? Does he like me? It's not just physical attraction, is it? Well...I guess...he -is- kinda cute... but that's nothing to base a relationship on. Why do I like him? He protected me. I could trust him with my secrets...but anyone could do that. Maybe it's just mutual attraction? No...he protected me, and he allowed me to see what was really going on with Cloud...he did all this on purpose. I...can't ignore that. "Stripes..." she said softly, pausing, then turning around and walking to her room.

Another day passed. Rude found himself standing outside Stripes' tattoo parlor and staring at the door. He certainly intended to go in, but he was stalling. He wanted a tattoo. He'd wanted one for some time, now, but he coudn't think of any way to describe it, so he had held off. He put his head down and thought some more on it. It was getting cold. _Shit. Might as well just go in..._

Stripes heard the bell on the door ring and tripped over himself trying to get out of bed. He looked at his useless alarm clock. It was 2pm. _Damn. I don't remember staying up all that late last night..._

"Stripes!"

"Be down in a second!" Stripes yelled back, putting on his sunglasses and a clean pair of pants.

"All right," Rude replied, taking a look around the waiting room. He'd spiffed it up since Rude had been there last. A new red leather couch sat by the display window. He sat down, and he found himself more amused than he thought he'd ever be with a piece of furniture as the cushions slowly deflated with his weight.

"What's up?" Stripes asked him conversationally, waving as he was coming down the stairs.

Rude stood up, re-adjusting his gloves. "I actually came to get a tattoo."

Stripes blinked. "Are you serious?"

Rude nodded. "Yeah. I was kinda feeling left out of the loop."

"What loop? The only people you know with tattoos that I've done are Elena and Ed."

"And you," Rude smiled.

Stripes rolled his eyes. "Yes, and me. O-kay. Here," he said, putting up the guestbook, "sign."

Rude signed his name. He was 23. "I know what I want, but I've been having trouble trying to describe it to other people..."

"That's not a problem," Stripes said, leading him into the parlor and opening up several flash books. "You might be able to find it in one of these."

Rude educated himself in the sample art and shook his head. "No, it's not in here. It's kinda tribal-like, but not in here. See, I want it on my head. I want the front to look like there's these three claw-marks..." he said, putting his hand up around on his forehead and trying to place where they would be. He looked ridiculous. "Or lines, or something. Pointed. Thick. Black. Tribal-like. And then from the top, they continue back to the top of the back of my head," he said, running his fingers along his head. "Does that make any sense?"

Stripes put a hand to his chin, trying to convert the description into design. "I think so...here, let me get some watercolors. You wait there in front of the mirror," he said, dashing across the hall for his art supplies.

Rude waited in front of the mirror for a second, putting his head down on the backwards-turned chair and closing his eyes. He looked up as he felt a cold wind at his back. He stood up, but it was gone. He shook his head and waited for Stripes to come back.

Stripes came back into the room with a cheap set of watercolors, a cup of water and a paintbrush clenched in his teeth. "Okay," he said, wetting the paint and standing between Rude and the mirror, "so, basically just three strokes on the top of your head..." he said, painting in the mockup.

Rude squinched his face up as Stripes painted. The paint was really really cold. _Why is everything so cold here today?_ he wondered.

Stripes stood back and let Rude look in the mirror. "Like that?"

Rude pondered it for a bit. He'd gotten the pointiness of the strokes right, but it looked a bit too uniform. "Can you make the one in the middle, like, really really thick?"

Stripes fixed it for him.

"Awesome!"

"All right, then, looks like we're in business!" Stripes chirped, clapping his hands and pointing at Rude before diving into the supply room again for his pen.

As Stripes was bandaging his head, a random thought occured to Rude. "Haven't seen Tifa around here lately."

Stripes sighed. "She's busy...I think."

"Divorce stuff?"

"Most likely."

"I noticed that E. White name of hers in your guestbook. Did she ever get a tattoo?"

"No, actually. She signed it by accident. Thought this was an inn," Stripes said, laughing a little.

"Hmm, so no intentions of getting one, either?"

"Don't think so."

Rude nodded. "It's kinda funny. Didn't Cloud get one done by you, too...?"

"Yeah, he did," Stripes said, frowning at the floor.

"Well, Tifa signed, and didn't get one, and Cloud didn't sign, and got one."

"So...?"

Rude shrugged. "Just think that's kinda funny, is all."

Stripes finished the bandages up and briefed him in tattoo-care. Then he led his friend downstairs again. Sunglasses met sunglasses. They stared suspiciously at each other for fifteen minutes. "You know..." Stripes said at length, "...one of us is gunna hafta budge one of these days."

Rude smirked. "It's not gunna be me, that's for sure, pal."

Stripes smirked, putting his sunglasses on his head. "I suppose you got me now..." he said, letting him see his scary-ass, icy-blue eyes, "I'm suprised you remembered what I said to you when Sephiroth died. Memories are funny things, don't you agree?"

Rude's mouth dropped open. "This is a joke," he said, standing back and pointing, a little bit of a smile forming on his astonished face. "You're..."

"Yuto Hojo," Stripes said, putting his sunglasses back on his face.

"Oh my GOD!"

"There. I did my part, now take off those damn sunglasses."

Rude was still running around, agog. "Oh my GOD, Stripes is Hojo!"

"Yes, we covered that, now--"

"STRIPES IS HOJO!"

Stripes covered his mouth. "Not so loud! You're the first one I've told, and Cloud wants me reeled in, in case you haven't noticed."

Rude blinked as Stripes took his hand off. "Does Tifa know?"

Stripes shook his head. "No, but that's the first thing we're gunna talk about if she ever comes over again."

"Don't you know how many people HATE you, want to see you hanged, killed, gutted, roasted on an open spit for what you've done!"

"Yes, but they're all basically my friends at this point, now aren't they?"

"Except Cloud."

"And Vincent."

"God...how the HELL did you survive! And how the Hell did you get so...young?"

Stripes looked at his chevronned forearm, thinking of how to explain it. "You remember Jenova, do you not?"

Rude squinted. "Yes..."

"She brought me back. Spat me out of Junon Harbor around about two months before Tifa showed up on my doorstep. She gave me...considerable power over my form..." Stripes demonstrated this by morphing an arm into a blade. "She told me that someone had to be stopped."

"You have that kind of power...and you're not taking over the world or anything...?"

"No. I don't really want that. I never really wanted that. I just didn't realize what I was doing 90 of my life. It's amazing how five years of Hell can change a person's mind."

"Five years of Hell?"

"It's rather confusing for me, as well. In fact, it might not have been that I was actually dead. Maybe I just got broken down into lifestream bits on the Sister Ray and rematerialized in the harbor...but I remember the last five years. A black field, and a projector, showing me the worst parts of my life, non-stop. Every regret, every mistake, every crime, every misjudgement and act of ignorance and selfishness...over and over. Until I heard her voice. She asked me what I wanted to do, now that I had seen all of this. I told her that I wanted to fix things, to do all that I could to make things right again..."

"Damn..." Rude said.

"I'm doing the best I can. Unfortunately, I really don't think that's enough. I don't know exactly what's up with Cloud, but something is definately wrong, and he has gotten himself into a position that's much too powerful for him to handle."

Rude nodded. "This is weird as hell. I start out with the ShinRa...then I'm with AVALANCHE...now...I'm back on ShinRa's side again?"

Stripes shook his head. "You're on your own side. Just because you agree with me doesn't have to mean anything. ShinRa is dead, and quite honestly, so is Hojo. What's more important is that things get set on the right path."

Rude nodded.

"I digress... Your sunglasses?"

Rude looked at him as if he'd grown three heads. "Oh, come on now..."

Stripes lifted his eyebrows. "I took off mine. And I don't think you've got a story like this to hide behind tinted lenses."

Rude huffed and took off his sunglasses, pale gray eyes revealed. "Happy now?"

Stripes grinned, then nodded. "Impressive."

Rude put his sunglasses back on. "Why did you want me to do that?"

"Just to see."

"Okay...so, you found salvation in hating yourself, is it?"

Stripes blinked at the rapid change of subject. "Well...as much as it's let me see where I went wrong...it's more trouble than it's worth. I've been trying to find a solution to this before I talk to Tifa next...but I can't just forget what I've done. I'm a total monster. You have no idea how much better off the world would have been if I had died young."

"You know that you should love yourself first before trying to love someone else..."

"I know. And I'm trying. I've started over very nicely as Stripes, but if I were never Hojo, I'd have made all the same mistakes and miscommunications over again. I can't forget that."

Rude folded his arms. "I suppose then it's a matter of struggling with yourself. Maybe you should leave Tifa out of it until you figure it all out. It won't do any good for you both to end up more messed up than you already are."

"Are you sure? I mean, I've been brave enough to try and reveal who I was to her, but...I'm not sure how she'll take it."

"Are you counting on her being repulsed by who you were? If you're not, then I suggest you do some more soul-searching. I don't want to see her hurt by you, regardless if you're my friend, regardless of who you were. I think you've changed signifigantly since you've been back. You're doing pretty damn good for yourself. Don't mess it up because you hate yourself. Then all of this would have been for nothing."

Stripes nodded.

"I just have one more question."

"Yes?" "Why tattoo artist, Hojo?"

"Oh, that. Heh. I've always considered myself an artist. Whether it be on paper, or on flesh, with flesh or clay...it's all the same to me."

"Some of your former designs were really good...but not all of them. I think my favorite were the ShinRa enhanced guard dogs," Rude said conversationally.

Stripes snickered. "I've never been complimented on any of my monsters before. Thank you. I kind of lost my nerve and sense of style near the end there, though."

"Kinda lost EVERYTHING near the end, too."

"Heh..."

"Well...I think it's about time I go to work. I've got this big case. I hafta go search for some old scientist my boss thinks is back alive. Wish me luck, Stripes?" Rude said, holding out his hand to shake.

Stripes cracked up and smiled at his bald friend. "Of course. Thank you, Rude. I knew I could trust you."

"Of course. You're my friend. And pseudo-honorary Turk," Rude said with a grin and walked out the door.

_Oh no, not me, I never lost control. You're face to face with the man who sold the world._

Everything was black.  
Tifa was running.  
Her feet sounded on a hard floor that she couldn't see.  
All she could hear besides that was the sound of her heart pounding in her chest and the sound of her lungs pumping air faster than they ever had before.  
That was all she heard.  
A small light was shed on her and she could see the old polished concrete floor.  
Then she heard some dripping of water in the background.  
And the sound of someone else breathing up ahead of her.  
"Stripes!" her voice sounded through the void.  
She heard Stripes' voice up ahead. He was screaming...then he began to sob.  
"STRIPES!" Tifa gasped, and ran faster, but it seemed the faster she tried to go, the slower she went. Up ahead of her, the background turned red and she saw the silhouette of Stripes doubled over, over something. A body?

"TIFA!" his voice came from behind her.

She stopped and stared around her, but there was nothing there.  
As she turned around, she heard Stripes scream an inhuman, monsterly scream.  
His silhouette had turned into something monstrous...but before she could tell what it was, she woke up with a gasp. Cloud's voice rang in her head - "YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE, JENOVA!"

Tifa's eyes widened as the nightmare seemed to continue even when she was awake. She put her hands on her face, and then slowly pulled them down to make sure the room was still there. She sighed in relief and flumped back onto her pillow. _It's been three days since I've seen him..._

She looked over at her alarm clock..._2AM, huh?_ She was going to see Stripes today even if it killed her. She got dressed in a white turtleneck sweater and jeans, and put on her shoes, walking out the door and turning out the light.

A faint pink light swirled into existence in the air just above her bed.  
Now here it is that everything either falls into place, or falls apart. If Tifa and Stripes don't connect, then my pull over Cloud will weaken, the pinkness with the voice of Aeris said, flickering neon green, laughing with her childish voice at first, but fading into a mature cackle.

Stripes had gone back to bed after Rude left. It felt good telling somebody who he was. He guessed it could have been slightly more special if he'd told Tifa first, but for some reason, it had been much easier to tell it to someone who was genuinely his friend. He still hadn't sorted out his feelings about Tifa. 

Said Tifa found him sleeping, though thrashing around in his bed a bit, shivering. His hair was wet from being in the shower, and all but frozen by the November wind blowing through the open window. Tifa shivered and closed the window, pulling Stripes' blanket over him, trying not to blush as she noticed that more than just his forearms were tattooed. He had three stripes just under his pectorals, and three more that started just above his hips, continuing down into his boxers--

Tifa pulled it over him quickly and stood there for a moment, blushing. After a while, she knelt by his bedside, watching his face as he slept. More peacefully now, that the window was closed and he was covered up. She sat there for a period of time. It seemed rather quick to her, but it was probably rather long, she guessed. "Stripes..."

Stripes stirred, as if in response.

"Who are you, Stripes? Tell me."

Stripes stirred again, opening his eyes, and almost hiccuping as he found Tifa's face not inches away from his. "TIFA!"

"I've decided. I want to know who you are, Stripes."

Stripes blushed, reaching to pull up the blanket that had already been pulled up for him. Mortified beyond belief, he put his head down and pointed his finger towards the door. "Just...give me a moment, please, Tifa..."

Tifa pouted and turned around. "Whatever you used to be isn't all that important to me, Stripes."

At length, after getting dressed, Stripes reached out to put his hand on her shoulder, but staved off the urge. He didn't feel he had the right to touch her, but that didn't change his feelings, sorted or not, for her. He sighed and shook his head. "No, you don't know what you're saying, Tifa..."

"Don't tell me how to feel. I know what you're doing, Stripes. Every action you've taken with me was for my benefit! You cared enough to try and help make my life a lot better! You're my friend, and I love you as a friend...add a little lust and...oh, Hell, it doesn't even have to be completely romantic...but I do love you, Stripes."

Stripes looked at the ground. "You don't need my love. That thing's certain."

Tifa stayed where she was. "Stripes, why don't you just tell me what exactly is so terrible about you?"

Stripes paused a moment, trying to get up the gall to speak. Suddenly, he had no urge to tell her anymore. But it had to be done. He had to tell her. "I-I am responsible for Sephiroth...and Cloud's present messed-up condition. I am responsible for the death of your father. I am responsible for the mass-suffering Mako energy has produced. I am responsible for ShinRa's rise to power. I am responsible for that whole stupid thing with Jenova. I am responsible for something that almost brought about the end of the world, and also the condition this city is presently in."

Tifa blinked. "You sound like you're confessing to being--"

Stripes looked at her shamefully, reciting slowly, with bitter, red-eyed disgust: "Professor Yuto Hojo. ShinRa Science Division. Employee ID #00512, Class A."

Tifa shifted her weight to take a step back, but she didn't. "You're telling the truth, aren't you?"

Stripes nodded and turned to the side, putting his hand over his face to try and stop himself from crying. He couldn't talk. He was bracing himself for Tifa's next remark and possible attempt to beat him up. He was also choking on his shame. He'd escaped actually dealing with her at all in his previous life. Just one step ahead, like a person dangling a string in front of a cat just out of reach to tease it. 

Tifa was thinking the same thing. She liked to think that she hadn't had all that much to deal with him, but his son burnt down her hometown and killed her father. He shoved Cloud and Zack into Mako tanks, had Zack shot when they escaped, let Jenova play with his mind like a squeeze toy. She hadn't thought much on this in a long time, but it was all coming back to her now. Hojo had had the gall to stay completely out of her way. She hadn't had any idea what was really going on! And he sat back in his fucking beach chair and let it happen! You couldn't hit him, you couldn't hurt him, you couldn't even SEE him! She hadn't even BEEN there when he died! She attended his funeral out of respect for the dead! RESPECT FOR THE DEAD! Her entire life, he had been sucker-punching her in the head and she wasn't even aware enough to turn around and see who was doing it! 

"BASTARD!"

She shoved him back. "Is that the best you can d--" he asked monotonely, but was interrupted by her uppercut.

"BASTARD! BASTARD! MOTHERFUCKING STRINGPULLING BASTARD! You've been laughing at me even when I had no idea you EXISTED!" she punched him into his endtable, shattering the body of the lamp that had been set on it. 

Stripes repressed the urge to smile. She deserved and needed this chance, and was finally getting it. "My mother hit me harder than that," he coughed.

Tifa bashed his head back against the window until she saw blood. "Bastard!"

"That's... better..." he coughed.

She beat him until her shirt was so stained with blood that one could never have thought it had been white. Then she bashed him around some more. Stripes strained to stay concious through all of it, not missing the pain of a single blow, but not healing himself enough for Tifa to notice. He was doing it for her. As she beat him into a bloody pulp, he thought to himself, _Why did I choose her to be enlightened? To heal? Probably because she was emotionally the worst of them when I started...because she ended up in my house...because I wanted to help anyone who came to me. Does this mean it could have been anyone, not just Tifa? Would anyone cry out like that to a complete stranger like she did? Why won't I let her love me back? Is that fair at all...? How can I get rid of this Arg thing if I don't let anyone in?_

The louder he screamed,  
the happier she was,   
the happier he was.

Two hours passed and he was still concious. Tifa was becoming suspicious. "Why aren't you unconcious yet? Are you healing yourself!"

"I have to. Any normal human...would have been dead by now, and s-seeing as things tend to get numb after you hit them long enough..., pain...dies down. I want to feel...every blow you give me, Tifa," Stripes panted.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because...it's what you want the most, and deserve. You deserve to see me in pain as much as anyone else does. And you know it," he said, smiling. Neither of them were particularly attractive at the moment, covered with blood from head to toe.

There was somehing in that "And you know it," that made Tifa cringe. The way his voice rasped aggressively, the way it sounded like an order. An order to hate. Fringed with the slightest bit of...innuendo? Tifa stepped back. "Stop it, Stripes, you're scaring me! This isn't you."

Stripes stood there for a moment, panting. "Oh it's not, is it?"

Tifa stepped toward him again, shaking her head. "You would have helped anyone who came through your door. If I were special, then you would have treated me like I belonged on a glass pedistal. You made me feel human. That's all I've ever wanted to be treated as. I'm not special. I'm not destined to be anything but myself. Cloud used to treat me like that until...he started suddenly remembering Aeris. And I know you aren't Hojo anymore. He used to plan everything out. Anything he couldn't control, he threw a fit over. I suppose it's a fitting punishment for you to be flung out into the real world with the rest of us human beings. How you must hate yourself by now. I'm almost sorry for you. I never knew I could be such good friends with someone I hated so much."

Stripes blinked. 

Tifa stepped forward again. "But...this is still so complicated. I... I... Dammit, Stripes, why do you have to be Hojo!" she cried, latching onto his abdomen. 

"Because that's who I am," Stripes replied.

"Were you counting on me being repulsed by you? You shouldn't do things like that. Because you know what?" Tifa asked, looking up at him.

Stripes gulped. "What?"

"Because sometimes things don't go the way you want them to," she said, taking his face in her hands and kissing him almost as passionately as she had ever kissed Cloud. She still had that little bit of loyalty left for him.

Stripes blinked. That's all he could do. When it was over, she stomped out of his room, taking one backward glance, then running out. Stripes sunk to his knees. "... ...That wasn't how it was supposed to go. THAT WAS SO COMPLETELY NOT THE WAY IT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO!" he cried, bending over and putting his head down, scratching at the hard wooden floor with his fingernails.

Timothy was tied to a chair in the basement of the AVALANCHE building. Sunder stood triumphantly in front of him, gushing with pride, waiting for Reno to return with Cloud and Vincent. Rude and Elena sat in their chairs, not facing the boy Sunder brought in. Rude was almost gnawing off his finger trying to keep down the fact that this was definately not Hojo. 

He was too young. His hair was too light. He looked too vacant. He could have been a stand-in for Sephiroth easily, but Hojo? No. Elena was beginning to get annoyed. "Rude..." she whispered, keeping her voice down so Sunder couldn't hear them.

Rude almost leapt out of his chair. "What?"

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, man, what's eating you?"

Rude looked down. "I just have a feeling that this kid's not Hojo."

Elena scratched her head. "Well, they DID say he was younger, didn't they?"

"Not THIS young. This kid looks like he was born in a trainwreck and raised in a dumpster."

"Didn't Hojo look the same way?"

Rude looked again at Timothy. "A relative, maybe. A kid, possibly. But this guy definately isn't Hojo."

Elena folded her hands behind her head. "Male intuition?"

Rude rolled his eyes, then snapped to attention as Reno clopped sideways down the stairs, Vincent and Cloud following him. "Thank you for taking time out of your busy trial schedule to come, Mr. Strife. By the way...how is that going?" Reno asked.

Cloud didn't look at Reno, but had the courtesy to answer his question, at least. "It's going well. Seeing as I didn't do anything to Yuffie in the first place, and there's no evidence that I've ever had any kind of device that would scar her like she was scarred."

Vincent kept his mouth shut and looked sideways at Timothy. _He looks...a little bit like Lucrecia. Is that supposed to be _funny_ or something?_

Cloud wasted no time with formalities. He dismissed all the Turks from the room, including Sunder and Vincent. He made sure the door was locked, and the room sealed air-tight. "You aren't how I pictured you would be by now."

Timothy glittered to life. "And how would you have pictured me?"

Cloud sneered and pulled him up by the collar of his jacket. "Don't toy with me, old man! I'm the one who killed your son and your precious Jenova, remember?"

Timothy had never recalled being killed by anyone, had never recalled Jenova dying either, but he kept his mouth shut. _They think I'm Father. Play with them a bit. It's more fun that way._ Timothy smirked. "Aren't you a bit too close for comfort, little one?" he asked, making a kissy face at him.

"Gaah!" Cloud shoved him away as quickly as possible, and the youth tumbled to the ground after tripping over the back of his chair. _Bastard's reminding me of Sephiroth with each passing second...wait a minute...wasn't Sephiroth Vincent's...? That's what Aeris told me..._ "Okay, I'll move on--" Cloud continued, shaking the shivers from his spine.

It is unneccesary, came a voice.

Cloud hardly recognized it, but it was who he thought it was. "Aeris?"

That is not Hojo, she said, her voice almost monotone.

"It's not!" Cloud gasped.

Timothy tilted his head at the apparition appearing in the corner of the ceiling and pouted. "I'm not?"

Aeris all but hissed at Timothy and came down at him. You! You're the son of that...stuuupid woman!

Cloud blinked. "Aeris, you're not going insane again, are you?"

SHUT UP!

Cloud's eyes would have shot out of his head if they weren't attached. Timothy was still grinning like the Cheshire Cat, even with the ghost in front of him. "Thought you got rid of me, eh, old witch?"

Aeris bared her teeth, but Timothy shook his finger at her. "Naughty-naughty. Blowing your cover with Cloud in the room's not good for business, you know?"

Aeris blinked and began to laugh insanely. Cloud sighed, relieved. "Whew. That's what I thought. Another episode of insanity."

Timothy blinked at Cloud as he watched his 'Aeris''s fit of insanity subside. _Something's seriously wrong with this guy. He reminds me of how Father was when Jenova occupied his every thought. That's kinna sad. Having yet another victim, even when you're dead? Who's obsessed now? I remember the girl you're posing as, and she was about eighty times as pretty as you are. You suck at being Aeris, Jenova._

'Aeris' came around out of a giggle fit. I'm sorry, Cloud! Hoo...you know how it is, right?

Cloud's eyes were all but glazed over. "Yes, darling."

This is not Hojo, Cloud.

"Should I have whoever brought him in put down, darling?"

No...because now we have a useful bargaining chip. His son.

"But Sephiroth's..."

Sephiroth was never Hojo's, this much is true, but he and Lucrecia did concieve a child. A child that was aborted in a moment of anger...

As Aeris went about explaining who Timothy was, and how he got to where he was now, Timothy drifted off. That part bored him. _Poor Father. Does he even know I'm back yet? Mother, if I believed in luck, I'd be wishing you all of it in the world..._


	15. Chapter 15

Stripes was laying down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. Cheap tiles, most likely made out of styrofoam, divided the ceiling into a grid. A car passed by below, tinting the ever-present yellow-orange light from the street lamps closer to white. Many a night Stripes had passed like this as Hojo. Lying awake at night, trying to keep your brain at a flatline so that you wouldn't have to pay attention to all the horrible things you did that day. Things most people would send him to their Hell for that he himself used to be able to watch over and over again without blinking.

He had flat-lined himself out of the last half of his life. Spent every moment trying to forget the last. It was hard to remember anything good when one was so busy trying to block out the bad, but slowly, as if coming out of a kind of slumber, his brain suddenly wouldn't flatline anymore. 

...tha-thump...  
She kissed me...

...

...tha-thump...

He closed his eyes and hers appeared before him.

...no.

...

...tha-thump...

Stripes shut them tighter and braced himself, yet at the same time yearning to see Tifa's eyes again. Instead, his own sneer fuzzed out of the blackness.

...

...flatline.

It kept him safe from anything bad.

...

...Tifa...

...

But it also blocked out anything good.

...

...good?

Stripes recalled Tifa's face after he told her about his involvement with Cloud's tattoo...

...

She has every right to hate me...and she does. But why did she...?

...tha-thump...

Sweet memories occur most inoppurtune.

Stripes shook his head. There is more to my life now than just Tifa.

The laughter of Rude, Elena and Reno echoed in his brain, along with the din of Ed's Bar.

...

Rude knows who you are...and yet he's not out to get you.

...

To be alive and live as a normal person, some are convinced that the world is out to get them, but it's not. Yet they fear that it is, so they guard against an enemy that is not there. But Hojo...you aren't a normal person. The world IS out to get you now, so you have good reason to be defensive about it...don't you?

...

No, that's the most pompous thing I've ever heard. Everyone thinks you're dead. Except those that know better. And half of them are...all right with it. I think. I don't understand, though. It's not logical. Not logical at all. I screw thousands of people's lives up, one of which I shouldn't have screwed with, which in turn effected several thousand -other- people's lives adversely, and yet...she kissed me. And Rude didn't turn me in. You fuck a person's life to Hell and they love you after you drag them through even MORE shit. It doesn't make sense. Negative stimuli piled on negative stimuli should NOT yield a postive response!

Stripes sat up and put his hands on his head. I can understand how Rude would favor me over Cloud, seeing how he's been acting lately, but Tifa...I don't understand. She keeps saying I did something for her. So I helped her out of the cold that I created for her indirectly. One good deed cannot override a lifetime of sin! It just doesn't work that way...but it did...didn't it?

...

...tha-thump...

...I made it so she would like me.

...tha-thump...

Stripes tried to forget the searing sensation he felt not two days ago...

...tha-thump...

...but he couldn't flatline this.

...tha-thump...

One more sin added to my pile...accidently...no. No, there are no "accidents" with you, Hojo. Everything is planned out to the letter and executed with cold precision. You are not doing her any favors by stringing her along like this. Because it'll all end up in a great big pile of shit, just like everything else you plan, Hojo.

...

...but what if you didn't mean to plan this?

He blinked for a moment and saw Vincent in that split second.  
Then he blinked again.  
Didn't plan it. It happened by accident. Because the conditions of the circumstances were right. No malice directly intended at all...none.

Stripes blinked again and put his hand over his mouth. "Ohh my God..."

...tha-thump...

A shiver ran up his spine.

...tha-thump...

"Ohhh my GOD..."

A flash of Cloud with his own sneer zipped through his brain and Stripes choked. He shook his head. "No, no, NO! NO!" Stripes sat up and began to pace. "NO!" he cried, stomping his feet on the floor. "God dammit all to Hell, it's happening AGAIN! Oh my GOD! NO! NO!"

Stripes emptied his stomach of everything he had eaten for the past three days in his bathtub and closed his eyes, turning on the water. "It can't be happening again."

After all the filth was washed down the drain, Stripes emptied another bottle of bleach in the bathtub and scrubbed until the fumes hurt his eyes. "How can I fix this? It's...it's so hard..."

He filled the bathtub up with the hottest water the faucet could draw, stripped and jumped into the tub, curling himself into a little ball and focusing on the water. It was losing its heat already. 

BOIL.

Stripes gazed at the water, and its rippling reflection of himself. He scowled.

THE POWER OF JENOVA IS THE POWER OF MATTER MANIPULATION. BOIL, DAMN YOU!

His eyes closed and he drifted into sleep as steam began to rise again, half expecting to encounter the adjucidcator of the world again, but that didn't happen. Instead, Lucrecia appeared, as she had on the night of their senior prom, decked in her shiny purple satin dress.

Purple had always been her favorite color. 

She wasn't looking at him, though. As the rest of the scene unfolded in front of him, he could tell it was the place where the senior prom that year was held. Lucrecia was dancing with some faceless boy to some tuneless fast song, and other faceless couples were dancing around them, minding their own business. 

Stripes looked down at himself, and as he expected it, he was wearing the all-white suit he had rented for half the night. He walked over to the punchbowl, and looked down to see his reflection. It wasn't looking at him, though. His reflection was dancing with another faceless girl. But it wasn't Stripes. It was Hojo...as he had been on that night, decked in white, all young and angsty and innocent...before Jenova.

He looked harder to see his own face, until he saw it. Mid-thirties, scars and all, very faintly. He looked at his younger self, who was looking at nothing but Lucrecia. The girl he was dancing with didn't seem to notice. She was having herself a good time. Stripes leaned against the pole that supported the ceiling and watched them for a while. "Don't you know how beautiful you look right now, Hojo? You should have taken a picture to make yourself remember."

The younger Hojo looked at his watch. It was only half an hour until he had to return the stupid suit. He looked at Lucrecia longingly and sighed as the song ended and the crowd dispersed. They both thanked their partners, and the faceless partners walked off. Stripes could remember how his heart began to beat at that moment, standing behind the younger version of himself. Lucrecia Maiers was standing in the middle of the dance floor, turning her head, looking for someone to dance with. Soon her eyes would meet his. Frozen, half out of fright, half out of excitement, Hojo gasped as Lucrecia's face turned so that her eyes met his for a split second, then continued the 180 degree turn she was making. 

The spell Hojo had put himself under broke as her eyes moved away from his, and he all but ran towards her, the familiar, yet blank faces of the crowd beginning to bar his way to her. He pushed his way through just as Lucrecia found another dance partner. Stripes remembered his name, and moved his lips with Lucrecia, exclaiming. "Oh! It's Tommy Blickenstaff!"

Young Hojo flushed, and reached his hand out for Lucrecia's shoulder. Tommy Blickenstaff had noticed him, but Lucrecia hadn't. Hojo cleared his throat, and put his hand on her shoulder gently.

"May I cut in?"

Hojo didn't believe he had said that when he said it, and it looked even stranger to Stripes. It sounded too finished. Too sure. Too confident. It was as if another being had said it for him. Either way, it worked. Tommy Blickenstaff curtsied graciously and pranced away, finding another person to dance with who wasn't afraid of the fact that he'd worn a dress to prom. 

Stripes couldn't help but sigh as he watched his younger self and the younger Lucrecia dance. He had thought only she had shone in that moment. But they both had. They weren't the only ones on the dance floor during that slow song, or the 5 fast songs that proceeded, but Stripes pondered. I don't look all that terrible when I smile. She thought so, too. She didn't think anything was wrong with me. You're both beautiful, you know that? I didn't start to act like there was anything wrong with me until...then. There was no reason to reach out for something she had no idea was there. Lucrecia...I'm sor-- 

It was 11 already? "Damn! Lucrecia...I'm sorry, I have to go get this suit back to the rental place before it's too late!"

Lucrecia nodded and followed him as he ran out the door. Stripes remembered what should have happened next. She followed him to the rental place, and they returned, Hojo dressed back in a t-shirt and jeans. The rest of the crowd gave him odd looks, but Lucrecia danced with him. She didn't care. She thought he looked nice with just his hair back. That was what was supposed to happen. Stripes ran with himself towards the door, reliving the moment.

A girl in a loud green dress stopped him halfway to the door. She was dancing with an older guy. "Hey!" she called.

Stripes looked back at Lucrecia. "What's the matter, Hojo? Where are you going?" she asked.

He looked back at the strange person asking him to dance. She was already dancing with someone. Why was she asking him? Stripes looked closer, and found that it was Professor Gast. "Professor Gast! What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here!"

Gast's eyes were glazed over eerily. "Come dance with us, Hojo..." he droned.

Stripes stepped back, scared a bit. He shook his head and broke his contact with his younger self. Younger Hojo gulped and looked back at Lucrecia again. "Maybe one more dance?"

Lucrecia nodded and followed him. They danced one slow song with Gast and the girl in the long green dress. Stripes stood there, puzzling at who it could be. The waves of the crowd shifted, and another familiar face was spotted by Stripes. "Valentine?"

The song ended, and Gast stood aside, placing the strange girl to dance with Hojo. Lucrecia was looking a little put out. A spotlight shone on the new couple, and as they danced, everyone else in the room stopped to look at them. Stripes followed the movements of his younger self, trying to recognize the face of the girl.

Lucrecia got fed up halfway through the song and tried to pull Hojo away from the new girl, but it didn't work. He was transfixed. Stripes turned his head as the crowd parted for Vincent, who offered to dance with Lucrecia. She refused and tried to pry Hojo free of his new partner once again. As it got harder and harder to pry him from her, Lucrecia finally broke down and began to dance with Vincent, who looked half the time on her, and half with bared teeth at Hojo.

As Lucrecia started to get more and more comfortable dancing with Vincent, the more Vincent got angry at Hojo for not noticing. Finally getting fed up with it, Vincent walked over and put his hands in front of Hojo's eyes, wrenching him from the girl in the green dress.

Stripes watched the rest of it unfold. Hojo went to dance with Lucrecia again until she stopped looking upset, then went back to dance with the girl in the green dress. Stripes knew what this was now. The girl in the green dress was Jenova. She looked at Stripes and winked, a wicked grin on her face as she continued to dance with his younger self. The noise of the rest of the crowd faded with time, as did Gast, then Lucrecia and Vincent, into blackness. 

It was just Hojo and Jenova for the longest time. He couldn't see anything beyond their spotlight. The war in Wutai, ShinRa, Sephiroth, everything passed beyond them until a familiar sword cut Hojo down, then Jenova. It was Cloud. The song ended and the youth kicked those he cut down into a corner, beginning to dance with Tifa. Jenova got up, limping to the bathroom. She came out a second later, wearing a blaring pink dress, her hair done up like Aeris. She threw a green suit at the still fallen Hojo. "You wanted to change your suit, didn't you? Go, dance with someone else now," Jenova said, tiptoing up behind Cloud.

Stripes blinked down at himself. He was wearing a green suit. As Jenova began to dance in her pink dress with Cloud, Tifa stood there, trying to get Cloud's attention. Jenova looked up at Stripes. "Don't just stand there! Dance with her! Keep her occupied!"

Before he knew it, Stripes had a Tifa latched onto him. "Wait, this isn't supposed to be like that! I don't feel..."

Vincent came up behind him, putting his arm on his shoulder, the coldness of his metal claw making him shiver. "You don't feel that way about her?"

Stripes looked down at Tifa, then back at Vincent. "How did you know?"

Vincent just shook his head. "Don't repeat the same mistake I did. Jenova pulled you away from Lucrecia. Instead of pulling both of you further apart, I should have helped bring you back together, away from that monster. It's happening again."

Stripes blinked as the entire scene began to fade away. "Wait! Vincent, how do I do that! Vincent! Vincent!"

A cold wind ran up his back as Lucrecia's ghost appeared before him once again. Hojo...I'm...I am a coward...please forgive me. I could have pulled you away from her, but I didn't. I'm sorry.

Stripes blinked back tears. "Lucrecia, I...everything's -my- fault."

You don't have to take all the blame, Hojo. I've got a part of it, too, she told him, moving closer, reaching her hand out to him. Can we both forgive each other? Help end this cycle? End this pain? Try and prevent it from happening again?

Lucrecia's hand glowed with an inviting light blue. Stripes looked up into her eyes. "I wish I could do it all over again. I'd return to you. And...Sephiroth...you never got to hold him...I...I'd let you hold him for as long as you wanted to!" Stripes cried, lunging forward and hugging her. It felt like hugging a dead body, but it was her. "I'm sorry for--"

Lucrecia's arms wrapped themselves around Stripes' back. Her cold, warm hands ached to feel the person she used to love so dearly returned to her. That's all that mattered at the moment. He was hers, and she was his, once again. I'm tired of hearing that word. There is no way to change what's been done. There's no way to make amends by hating yourself. You have to go and -do- something. And I'll help you. You are Arg no more. There is no more reason to hate yourself. There has -never- been a reason to hate yourself. Everything that you thought you were doing so terribly lead to something even more terrible, she told him, looking up into his eyes and brushing back a lock of his hair.

Stripes looked down at her, amazed that she had come around so fast. "I don't understand. All of a sudden, everyone's being so decent to me. It makes no sense. I push people away, and then they cling to me..."

You're talking about Tifa, aren't you?

Stripes nodded.

That was cruel of you. Endearing yourself, and then suddenly require that she stay away from you. Human hearts don't work that way.

"Endear myself? What? What have I done to Tifa to endear her to me?"

First of all, you gave her shelter when she needed it, and food. And something else she wasn't getting from anyone else - you talked to her. You've become her best friend. You mean a lot to her, Stripes, Lucrecia replied, running her finger along his scars. Makes me...regret what I gave up.

Stripes shook his head. "No! Lucrecia, I don't..." he felt a lump in his throat, "I don't want history to repeat itself. Cloud can't be -that- far gone. He can't."

Lucrecia looked up at him. This is Jenova you're talking about.

Stripes nodded. "I...figured. Aeris' ghost...that's not really Aeris after all."

Lucrecia shook her head. Aeris passed long before, and followed into the light after Zack. I watched her go. That was five years ago. I never ever saw Jenova go. Not even when you came back to 'life.'"

Stripes closed his eyes. "I knew it. I knew Jenova wasn't dead. And now she's after Cloud. That makes him me. That makes Tifa you...and that makes me..."

Vincent?

Stripes sighed and put a hand on his head. "Never thought I'd be in such a position. What should I do?"

You don't have to do anything. You can sit here and watch the world decay. You can pull Tifa entirely away from Cloud and try to stop him. Or you can try to piece them back together. It's your call.

"Well, I can't just sit and do nothing. From experience, I know it's hard to stop a person who's on such a Jenova-high. Especially if he's beaten me so easliy before. If a patient has a broken arm, you don't chop off the arm. You try to heal it."

But how do you plan to get Cloud seperated from Jenova?

Stripes chanced an old smirk of his, and Lucrecia was slightly charmed by it. "I have a plan!"

Lucrecia's mirth faded as the implications of what that statement could mean swept through her mind. No, don't sacrifice yourself again! You can't!

Stripes shook his head and put his hands on her shoulders. "I will do nothing of the sort. Trust me. Please," he told her, kissing her on the cheek.

Lucrecia gave him an odd look. Call that a kiss? Am I not sweet?

The reformed former scientist took his former wife into his arms for a whole minute. Lucrecia's hands trembled and melted at his touch. She recalled the feeling of blood rushing everywhere as her heart beat faster as it did when she was alive. Vincent had come close to exciting her as much as her husband used to, but there was always one tiny bit about it that was different. Her heart didn't beat as fast. Her soul didn't leap with as much joy with Vincent. Vincent had been her comfort zone. But Hojo...Stripes...whoever he was that she had married, out of her comfort zone, out in the cold hard world, there was an element of being thrilled; being slightly dangerous. Vincent had left her breathless with his beauty and his pained passion. But with Hojo, the passion had been just that - passion. No pain, just genuinity. No sin, but fun. Careless, fire-like passion, she guessed. There had been nothing like it in all the world. And now it was hers once again. "Sweet as the wind that blows me to you," Stripes whispered in her ear.

Hojo-- she whispered back.

Stripes snickered as he nudged closer to her ear, whispering his first name: "Yuto."

Blinking back tears, Lucrecia held onto him as if he were the only thing between her and nothingness. She began to flicker. Yuto...my Yuto...

Stripes blinked. "Lucrecia...?"

Lucrecia stepped back and looked at her hands. She was flickering like a cranky neon lamp. She choked back tears and put her hands to her heart. I...have to go soon, Yuto.

"Why now? What's happened?"

Ghosts are only around because they want to resolve the unhappiness dealt to them in their lives...Jenova let go of my body, so now I'm all dead, except for the unhappiness inside my soul, Lucrecia said, flickering whiter. 

Stripes stepped forward to hug her, and tears began streaming down his face. As he touched her, as she flickered, he could almost -feel- her joy. Had he done this? "Lucrecia?"

Yuto...you make me so happy! I don't want to leave you! Lucrecia cried, latching onto him again.

Stripes stalled for a moment, afraid that if he spoke again, none of it would be coherent. This was something truly of his own invention that was good. He never realized before how happy he used to make Lucrecia when he was around. And all he had ever needed to make her happy was him. No trophies or awards for finding a new element. No scientific breakthroughs or gobs and gobs of money, or worldwide recognition had ever made Lucrecia happier than she was at this moment. And she was happy because he had returned to her after so long. Something beautiful that he had, more or less, caused. Nothing Jenova had ever wrought even compared to Lucrecia right now. "You're beautiful..." he managed to stammer out.

Lucrecia put her hands on the shoulderpads of his goofy green suit and laughed. You're beautiful, too, Yuto! she giggled, running her hands down his suit, turning it as white as she was flickering. 

Stripes looked down at it, and she pointed at another spot of the darkened dance floor, where his younger self shone the same white as they did. The young Hojo waved at Stripes and Lucrecia, and ran out the door of the hall, the younger Lucrecia following him. 


	16. Chapter 16

"Vincent paced the basement, in the space behind the one-way mirror, like a caged beast. Why had they sent -him- to look after that monstrous little brat of Hojo's? There were better things he could be doing. There were papers to fill out, and bars to sing at, and whores to fuck. And Tim was beginning to...stare at him in a discomforting manner," Tim narrated, staring at Vincent from behind the one-way mirror.

Vincent snarled. Of all the things to inherit from "father", this Timothy had been blessed with Hojo's shining wit. He put his hands on the window ledge and narrowed his eyes. "Your caricature of me in your mind is well-rounded, looks like."

"Ooo...have I hurt da wittle diva's feeeewings? Tell me, Valentine, how would -you- feel toward someone who ended your life before you even began to BREATHE?" Tim seethed.

Vincent shook his head and sighed. He wasn't quite sure he understood. "_How_ are you?"

"I feel fine."

"No, HOW are you? How did you come to exist here, if you say you died before you were born?"

Tim smirked. "When a soul wants to live as much as I do, he will find a way. You had Mother abort my body, so I waited until Father started making ones I could use."

"And souls can just wait around, waiting for their bodies to be born, is that what you're saying? That's kinda sacrelige of some kind somewhere, isn't it?"

"I never said religion had anything to do with it. All I know is what happened to me. I was the product of two people who loved each other, once. You helped to tear them apart. Stopped the production of the reminder that Mother and Father loved each other once. -I- am that reminder of their love."

Vincent nodded. "I understand. So, I guess you see Sephiroth as the reminder of the love Lucrecia and I had for each other once, in opposition."

"...And the love Jenova inspired in Father. You're pretty quick, opera floozy. Sephiroth stood for everything I wasn't. After Sephiroth died, and Jenova bade Father ressurect the reminder of the love between you and Mother, and Jenova and Father, a mistake was just screaming to be made..."

"You mean, when Hojo started to clone Sephiroth?"

"Use your terms as you like. Either way, Sephiroth's DNA contained bits of you, and bits of Mother. By this time, Father's own DNA had just about as much of Hojo in it as it did Jenova in it. Clumsy Father, pricked his finger, accidently mixing his DNA with Sephiroth's for his second experiment in cloning. So, that's everybody...you, Mother, Jenova, and Father in the same little petri dish. I can occur wherever Mother and Father come together, so..." Tim smiled a bit, putting the hood of his jacket up, hunkering down. He shakily reached out with his right hand, which had a roman numberal two tattooed on it, with a little ray-and-dot design circling it.

A clone. 

Timothy was really a clone of Sephiroth...only slightly darker, more Hojo-like, less Vincent-like, more Lucrecia-like. He -knew- he'd seen Yuffie wrapped in a familiar black cloak once or twice since Cloud's trial. "I..." Vincent began.

"I don't hold any real grudge against you, mind. You really didn't know what you were doing back then. You're only slightly more intelligent now about things. Bet you never thought you were really helping Jenova kill Father and Mother's love, though, were you?"

"Timothy, I--"

"Heh. It's all right, Opera Floozy. You owe me nothing, you don't have to be sorry. It's Jenova's fault, all of it."

"You obviously carry -some- kind of thing against me, though. Otherwise you wouldn't be calling me Opera Floozy and the like."

"The only thing wrong with you now is that you've lost your purpose. I thought you swore once that Mother was the only person you loved. And now, you've completely blown her off. For shame. You've completely blown love off. Tsk tsk."

Vincent gave the younger one an odd look. "In case you haven't noticed, Lucrecia's been dead for about thirty-five odd years. Only five years have passed for me, but I can't run around being all depressed because of something that happened three and a half decades ago. All I've tried to do is enjoy life. Is that so wrong?"

"It wouldn't be so bad if you actually enjoyed it. Enjoyed singing songs badly in front of drunk people you don't know, making people who would have been your friends angry when you ran off with some chick who thought you were cute. That's not enjoyment. That's just distractions. It's commercial. It's plastic. It's single-serving. I know of several people who would have gotten -real- enjoyment out of that kind of free behavior, but you never really did. It was all a show. I can tell. You're exactly like Father, putting up a wall of what you are not to make other people think you're all right, so nobody'll try to dig into your soul and possibly fix what's wrong. You're still heartbroken, Vincent Valentine. You do yourself no favor to ignore it and let it fester," Tim said.

Vincent sighed. Everything was fine until bits got pointed out. "I'm tired of feeling heartbroken. I want to have fun again. That's all. Nothing wrong with fun. I want to live right now, not yesterday."

"So live now, doofus. It would help if you chose something to do that you actually thought was fun. But it's been so long since you've had fun, you don't remember what it is, do you?"

"The only people who seem to identify with me nowadays are people in their late fifties or early sixties. People...more my age. I -am- technically sixty-two years old, anyway. All this...new-fangled...stuff..." Vincent shook his head, "I don't understand half of it. On television the other day, I watched a cartoon monster turn into a different cartoon monster, a frightening actor dance around in a hotel, and some poor introverted fellow sweat after another man asked him if that was his final answer. Television must have been invented after Hojo put me to sleep. I've learned to convincingly smile and nod, but it's still...just some...stupid, annoying talking box. People scare me. Everything's different. Even me, even Lucrecia..." Vincent sighed, and nearly jumped as Reno, Elena and Rude entered the room.

Elena blinked. "Sir, are you all right?"

"Vincent, are you crying, sir?" Rude asked, slightly nervous.

Vincent looked at his reflection in the one-way mirror. His eyes were red, but he didn't see any tears. He reached up with his left hand to wipe his face, but cold metal contacted his cheek instead of a hand. Everything was different. He had had five years to get used to it, but now everything seemed back to square one again. He looked in the glass again and frowned, with a huff. 

Tim waggled his fingers and gave him a winning smile. 

"YOU!" he snarled at Tim, digging his claw into the ledge of the one-way mirror.

"ME! Hahaha! Isn't it amazing to call yourself that? It's wonderful just to be acknowledged as a human being! Thank you!"

Vincent growled, stood back up, regained his composure after a few seconds, and put a hand on Elena's shoulder. "You three watch over him. Don't talk to him, don't stand too close to the glass, don't listen to anything he says. He may not be Hojo, but he's just as dangerous. He could rip you apart with a sentence," he ordered, glancing back at Tim, showing off his tattooed hand and flipping him off. He did a double-take. He'd seen those ray-designs somewhere before...wings on a dragon, on the shoulder of a popular bartender...!

.

With no further word, Vincent dashed out the door, running noisily down all the backalleys and dingy sidestreets only burned into his brain because they were places he went to drink and sing in with the bar floozeys, and ignore the junior Turks. 

He turned into a familiar alley. At the end of the alleyway glowed a neon sign. Its red color flickered on and off like a dying firefly communicating its final message.

"ED'S."

Not too far beyond, there was another sign that flickered. Innocent, flourescent, and white, no trace of evil inside really perveyed in the sign, just plain old "TATTOO". Vincent heaved, partially with the effort of running half a mile in under five minutes, partially from the rage boiling up inside him. "You. Were. Right. Under. My. Nose," he rasped, "HERE. The. Entire. Fucking. TIME!" he exclaimed, feeling a sickly metallic taste in his mouth. He was limit-breaking, definately. Hadn't done -that- in about five years. Hadn't felt anything so strongly in five years, either. Sickening, sickening feeling, fangs beginning to protrude where they shouldn't be protruding, wings sprouting where wings shouldn't sprout. This, in exchange for his life. All his old friends were gone. His parents, his relatives, pets, aquaintances, everything, everything gone! Everything but him...

Wood was a rather easy material to break through. Vincent could have probably just done it with his claw, or jumped through the window. Yup, the whole damn house smelled like him. "HOJOOOOOOO! Come out of...out of wherever you are!"

.

Now, where was Stripes? Stripes was on the roof, looking out at where the billboard used to be up, wifebeater tank top and leather jacket, slicked back hair, regular run-of-the-mill Judas. No sunglasses or cigarettes, though. He was sick of them. He'd heard Vincent coming about a mile away, seen him halfway before he got there. He could have run, or hid, or did anything but stay there, but he stayed. He didn't know why. Vincent was definately going to kill him, but he stayed put. Maybe it was out of fear...or maybe out of a seedling sense of justice. Stripes wasn't really in the mood to ponder his logic of staying, he just stayed. That was all that mattered. He didn't call Vincent to him, and he didn't hide. He just stood there and let Vincent slam into him like several tons of bricks, soar off the top of the building with the momentum, then back to earth, hard, into the pavement below. 


	17. Chapter 17

Vincent heaved, settling down. As his sense and own form returned, he looked around, puzzling at the small crater he and Hojo had made in the road. His hands...his hand and claw were still lodged pretty deep into his rival's back, almost as if making two little holes for wings to come out of if wing seeds were planted in 'em.   
Vincent blinked. His brain was really falling apart now. Wing seeds, mechanical claws, fangs, a twitching hand setting itself on the ground to push its dead master up...

What?

Stripes coughed and hacked a bit before he spoke. "Did that..." he heaved, "make you feel any better...young man?"

Vincent all but threw himself off Hojo, stumbling backwards into the alley a bit. "You're...dead, aren't you! You're supposed to be DEAD! You've got two big gaping holes in your back...your ribs are supposed to be crushed...your skull cracked...h-how...how! HOW!"

The Turk flinched as Stripes stood back up, brushing off his jacket and adjusting it, cracking his hands, shoulders and neck back into place. Wiping the blood off his face, he took a step in Vincent's direction, with a small smirk. "Trying not to look scared. Very noble of you. I thought you were tired of effectlessness, though, Valentine."

The fury Vincent thought he had expended returned once more, his pulse quickened, his breathing became erratic again and he growled, flaring his nostrils. "You have no right to talk to me like that...you have no right to talk to ANYONE like that. You have no right to talk to anyone at all! What the HELL do you think you're doing! Trying to worm your way back into our lives so you can twist it and destroy everything again?"

Stripes had decided that the next time he saw Vincent, he would try to reason with him, understand him, maybe even go so far as to become friends with him. But it was fucking impossible to do that in the middle of all his righteous-babble. Stripes balled his hands into fists. "Vincent..."

"Who do you experiment on now? Your tattoo patrons? People who trust you? Just like before? Or are you just wandering around like a pathetic loser because Jenova's gone and you don't know how to do anything else? Marking the bartender to be your next Sephiroth?"

"Shut up, Vincent."

"No! I want to know! Who are you fucking in the name of science!"

Name of science? Huh? Oh, that's right. He was a scientist. Not really, though. He liked to call himself a scientist, but everything he did ended up being for Jenova. Who are you fucking in the name of Jenova should have been the question. "No one."

"Lies! I know you! I'm not going to let history repeat itself! There will never be another me, do you understand! Nobody needs to have everything they knew ripped from them! Nobody needs to wake up and find everything they knew is different or gone! Nothing can give back what you took from me, you fucking bastard!"

"And the only way to bring some solace is to kill me? So you can start forgetting it ever happened? Again? Watching everything change isn't as painful as having it ripped out like a band-aid. All you've got is culture-shock. It'll be gone in a little while. Hell, you seemed to have gotten over it when I saw you in Ed's before. What happened?"

"Lucrecia...I would have continued to forget...and live in ignorance if it weren't for her showing up again," Vincent growled, glowering at Hojo with a revelation. "You...YOU must have sicced her on me! To tear me out of my happy little rut and make me remember how much I don't fit in anywhere anymore. I am fifty-fucking-seven years old, Hojo. I don't belong anywhere anymore, thanks to you, and thanks to Lu for making me remember."

"Weyl, whoop-dee-doo. Let's get you to a retirement home, old man. Get over it. I know you did before. I'm sixty-fucking-five years old, and I'm just FINE," Stripes replied beligerantly.

Lucrecia materialized on the roof where Stripes had been standing, looking down at the two of them. There was a time when she loved each of them, but to see them fight made her sick of both of them. Each was forgetting why they were there, not giving regard for how the other felt. She didn't want to give herself away, but she wanted to give both of them a smack in the head to get back on track. Stripes looked up and saw a flicker of white, remembering what it was he wanted to do with Vincent.

The Turk was fit to lunge at him again. "You're just fine because you've had about thirty-fucking-five years to adjust!"

Stripes folded his arms. Vincent didn't want to talk. All he wanted was to smash something right now. Fine, loser, I'll give you something to smash. "You've had five, and you seemed to be doing nicely. You're only messing -yourself- up, idiot."

Vincent snarled. "You WANT to die, don't you?"

"No. I want to talk. But you want to smash," Stripes said, cooly, shucking off his jacket and holding his arms out. "So smash, Tankorr, SMASH!"

You didn't have to tell Vincent twice. He lunged and cracked the tattoo artist into the nearest wall, backing up to see his beady little eyes roll back into his head as he flumped to the ground from the pain. Stripes looked a bit different than Hojo did, but still had the general look of him, and it was still the same person. Vincent wished it could have been as satisfying as he made it out to be, but the louder Hojo screamed, the better he felt.

I'm probably going to become some sort of masochist freak if I let everyone I meet get pleasure from beating me black and blue, Stripes thought, straining to see high up on the roof again. Was she still there? Vincent kicked him where it hurt the most - he was surprised he hadn't earlier, since it was one of the first things Tifa had done when she was beating him up - and curled under. Yes, he knew Lu was there, and she was watching with distaste at the display, but he didn't care. Vincent needed to get everything out.

And everything out Vincent did. And he didn't stop until he thought Stripes would never be able to walk, speak, have kids, write, see, or talk again. He took a break, walked a little ways down the alley, but ran back. Beating Hojo up was satisfying, but he still had a whole lifetime of things he wanted to say to the bastard, and now that he was pretty confident that he had a silent, captive audience, he started talking.

"Having everything ripped out from you at once may not be as painful at first, but then you realize that you've been given the chance to watch everything new get old and rot away, just like any normal person would. You're not sparing anyone pain in that little justification, you freak. You've never really been any kind of expert on reducing pain -- you're too used to dosing it out! Was there ever a time when you didn't pervert things that were supposed to be good into things that were horrible? If there was, when did you decide it was more fun that way? You had a choice. Would you rather go through life restoring things, or tearing them down? What horribly wretched thing must have been done to you to make you believe that destroying things would be better for the people who lived around you? I know it wasn't just all just me and Lucrecia that made you insane. Maybe we were the thing that pushed you over the edge, but there must have been this massive ball of pent-up something inside you that drove you to make you as sick as you are..."

Stripes, although his jawbone was broken in more than two places, and his throat was raw from the horrible taste of his own blood running down it, spoke up in a rasp. "jen...ova..."

Vincent grimaced. So maybe this audience wasn't as silent as he'd have liked, but at least it was interactive. "Heh. I knew you'd try to pin it on Jenova. But there must have been something of a ball of hate inside you for her to feed off of first. Otherwise, she would not have bothered with you."

Stripes strained his throat to speak again, but only managed a weak "Y...yyou..." before he gave up on it.

Lucrecia, up on the roof, was about to intervene. She hated to break her cover, but someone needed to reply. However, Stripes thought too quick for Lucrecia to give herself away: Fuck. Shouldn't heal myself in front of him, but I need to respond to this little nugget of ignorance. Makes me wish I spent more time learning how to talk through minds. Oh, well, here goes...

For a second, everything around the Turk seemed to invert like a photo negative, and Vincent heard a voice boom in his head: You're no expert on Jenova, pretty one. You really don't know what you're talking about here.

Vincent jumped back against the wall, scared shitless at the voice that didn't belong in his head. 

Don't panic, idiot. I'm only talking to you. I won't do anything fancy, like read your mind or make you punch yourself, Stripes said, waiting for Vincent to calm down. Once properly calmed, the former scientist resumed: Hatred can be found in the heart of any man, if one looks for it. And believe me, Jenova has enough of it stored up inside her to last her another 2000 years.

"Seems to me that you weren't just an innocent victim, though. It wouldn't be too farfetched a thing to assume, I think. Lucrecia said you were waiting for her to heal a part of you you'd never really shown anyone before. Maybe you didn't want to believe it, but part of you -wanted- Jenova to take your hatred and smear it around for the next forty years."

Stripes gave this some thought. Your point is valid. But if there's a part of me that wanted Jenova there, there was also a part of me that wanted none of it. A part that feels guilty for what the other part did willingly...

"Is this repentance I'm hearing from you, Hojo?"

Probably. I don't think I could lie using my mind to talk to you like this. Call it what you will. I guess it could be translated loosely into 'I've been really really sorry for what I've done, and I've probably got enough hatred of myself right now to make me another target for Jenova, but I know sorry is the farthest thing from making anyone feel better, and I'm tired of saying it to people, but I'm sorry anyway.

"You're right. Being sorry only opens up more room for doing it again if you don't do anything about it. If what you say is true, do you intend to do anything about it?"

Hell yes. And I refuse to die until I do it. It's entirely too important to be ignored, especially by someone like me, who's lived through it.

"Then, what is it?"

Have you been watching the way your President Strife has been behaving lately?

"I think he's gone insane, but he pays me for what I do, and going after you, wild goose chase or not, has never been against my principles."

Has he said anything to you regarding Aeris?

Vincent nodded. "He says she talks to him all the time, and that they're in love or something. It seemed a lot stranger for him to say before Tifa left a couple months ago. They seemed to be so into each other when they got married. But for the past two years, Cloud's been on about Aeris. I don't really say I can blame Tifa for leaving like that..."

Heh. I figured you wouldn't blame her for that. Now I think I finally understand. The tighter you try to hold onto a pretty bird that wants to fly, the more it will try to free itself. I wish I could have understood that back when Lu flew away.

Vincent blinked. "What are you implicating, Hojo? You didn't strangle -- you neglected, but you know that as much as I do. This is a tie-in to Cloud and Tifa. ...How?"

Have Cloud's descriptions of Aeris as a ghost been consistant with Aeris' actions while she was alive?

"What? No comment on me being so observant after five years of wine, women and song?"

I'd think that'd be rather superfluous in such a dire conversation. I thought we were done kicking each other in the balls. At this point, I think it'd be much better off if we weren't annoying the hell out of each other, wasting our time taking minor insults personally while something very dangerous is going on under everyone's noses!

Vincent was puzzled. This was too weird for him. Another thing being ripped out - Hojo's hatred of him. He wasn't sure how to feel about it. On the one hand, it was good to know the man was finally awake. But on the other hand, it was another thing that had changed suddenly on him. He shook his head. No time to ponder that now, since this was important. Now, what was it that was important? "Anyway, back to your important thing."

Thank you. Anyway, has ghost-Aeris' behavior fit with non-ghost Aeris' behavior?

Vincent thought on this for a moment. The only times he'd seen Aeris' ghost had been when Lucrecia's ghost was around, and not for very long, but she -did- seem a little out of sorts for Aeris. Not malignant or anything when he'd seen her, but...a little off. "She did seem a bit insane when I saw her, and Cloud told me that she told him you were alive again. Seemed to fit, seeing as maybe Aeris had it in for you for locking her up in a glass tube and trying to mate her with Red XIII."

I'd see that...but Aeris never really struck me as being big on revenge.

"I didn't really get to know her that well while she was alive, but she seemed a bit bubbly for that, yes. I'd think maybe she'd forgotten all about you and the whole ShinRa thing when something momentarily more important came up, like Sephiroth and Meteor and all. After Cloud killed Sephiroth, I'd say there really wouldn't be any reason for her to stick around at all. And ghosts are only supposed to stick around because something bothers them, or something's unfinished, right?"

Stripes laughed at himself. If we had been having this conversation six years ago, I'd have called you a stupid barbarian for even mentioning the belief in anything paranormal, and collapsed from laughing so hard. Funny how outlooks change when you -are- the ghost.

"And that has anything to do with the conversation because...?"

Never mind. I forgot your sense of humor hadn't gotten done traveling through your mother's umbilical cord before they cut it off. Anyway, would it be safe to say that maybe this ghost of Aeris really isn't Aeris at all?

A sigh of relief came to the Turk. Whew. Maybe he -does- still hate me. Maybe that's nothing to cheer at, but at least it's something that's still there. Stripes lay there, slightly puzzled, awaiting his reply: "I wouldn't put any money on it, but it's not far-fetched. So this being seems intent on prying Cloud and Tifa apart. I'm thinking maybe you're trying to make some allusion to Jenova trying to pry you and Lucrecia apart all those years ago? It would work, except for one little thing."

And what's that?

"Jenova's dead, ya junkie!"

Is not.

"Is too."

Is not.

"Is too."

Is not is not is not.

"Prove it. You seem to have inherited a good deal of Jenova's powers. The only reason I can think of that you would have them is that Jenova gave them to you so she could preserve at least a fraction of herself when she died. Which now technically makes you Jenova. And if you're Jenova, in your equasion of yourself and Cloud to Tifa and Lucrecia, then it would be you posing as Aeris trying to make a rift between Cloud and Tifa. And that's just fucking sick, so it fits in with something you'd do."

Jenova isn't dead. I might have a talent or two or three given to me, but I'm not head-honcho. I thought I was, for a little while, until I found out about Aeris. And give me one good reason why I'd want to split the Strifes up and make Cloud insane.

"Maybe so he could find the Black Materia again or some sort of other doomsday device for you so you could put all of us 'out of our misery?' Sounds good to me. Your trick won't work, prick."

Lucrecia had had enough. Stripes was being too roundabout and Vincent was misunderstanding to the point of non-cooperation. Vincent, listen to him. Aeris' ghost -is- Jenova. Or, at the very least, Jenova's ghost. And now that Hojo's awake again, he's not going to repeat that whole fiasco with Sephiroth. It's just not in him. He's spent about five years in his own little pocket of Hell, and he's been let out, and if he's good, he doesn't have to go back. I don't think he'd take the chance, and I don't think you'd think he would, either, because you know what personal Hell is like, Vincent. If Stripes were Jenova's pawn, he wouldn't be taking care of his body like he has. In fact, I think he'd just be some irate blob of glowing green stuff. He has his free will, and has actually turned his powers into something helpful. Nobody could have ever guessed that Jenova's powers could be used to heal physical pain. The only thing we observed was that it was good at causing physical pain. Stripes' powers are the same as Jenova's. The only difference is in the attitude they're used in. And it's true what Stripes said. Jenova's just one big ball of hate, that likes to amplify and feed off of other people's hate to cause pain. The more possibility for hatred to exist in a person -- in response to a situation involving, but not limited to fear, jealousy, sadness, guilt, ignorance, aggression or arrogance -- the more Jenova becomes attracted to it. But the possiblility of hatred could be found in any person, so basically, it's normally the person who's in a position to do as much good in the world as they possibly could that gets targeted.

Vincent reeled from the staggering scientific explaination, and the sudden appearance of an awake Lucrecia, but got the idea. "So, that's why it's Cloud now, I'm guessing."

Stripes had taken the oppurtunity during Lucrecia's soliloquy to heal himself to the point he could at least sit up again and speak normally. "Yes. And that's why it's important that I have your cooperation in this. Cloud could be -- despite differences in occupation, position, age and circumstance -- the next me. And that's really really really really bad. This planet has been through enough that it will never need another person to put Jenova in a position of power. I did it from behind the scenes, created the Sephiroth puppet for Jenova, and it almost worked. I suppose now she's going for a much more direct approach."

The Turk paced the alley for a while, trying to absorb all the information at once. It was staggering. "So...if Cloud is the next Hojo," he mused, looking up at Lucrecia on the roof,"Tifa would be the next Lucrecia..." Vincent folded his arms, thinking back on the tragedy that seemed a whole lot more shallow thirty years ago. Thirty? No, it was thirty-five now. Almost thirty-six. So, he wasn't the cause of anything in that. He was only part of the reaction. There wasn't a sin committed by him at all. It -was- all them...mostly. Something in that brought him a little peace, and he couldn't help but smile at Hojo and Lucrecia. "You two are so good at screwing each other over. Maybe you -were- a match made in Heaven. Guess I had nothing really to do with the most important part of the problem back then."

Stripes slid himself up the wall, almost holding his right arm on with his left. He'd never really been much of a believer of any kind of religion, much less the public understandings of what Heaven and Hell were, but in retrospect, if where he had been for the past five years was barely alive, but in his own personal Hell, then he guessed the feeling he'd experienced with Lucrecia in his dream, and their marriage forty years ago could be counted as personal Heaven. But he shook his head. Now was not the time to be profound in response to the use of a cliche'. He was puzzled, though, at Vincent's lack of pointing out his relationship with Tifa. He probably didn't know...or want to know...about it, but the fact that he didn't place much importance on it in the grand scheme of things put his heart at ease a little bit. Hojo looked up at Lucrecia with a slightly guilty look, but was met with a wink, and a knowing smile. 'M dead, babe. Don't torture her...or you.

Vincent scratched his head. "Scuse me?"

Err...wasn't talking to you, dear.

Stripes slid down the wall again, healing the rest of himself. No more need for pain right now. With a happy sigh, he looked over at the puzzled Turk. "So, you'll help us?"

Vincent knotted his brow and looked up at Lucrecia, then down at Stripes. "I think I need some time just to absorb all of this better. I'd like to see this ghost of Jenova for myself before I do anything. And just what is it that you wanted me to do, anyway?"

Get Jenova to show herself to Cloud, if you can. Maybe try to wake him up. And get my son out of that basement!

Stripes blinked. "Basement? Son? Wha...?"

Vincent would have loved to spend another hour explaining Timothy to the obviously clueless Stripes, but there were things to be done. "Yes ma'am." With a small bow, the Turk bade Lucrecia farewell and started on his way back to AVALANCHE.

Stripes grumbled and got off the wall, running after him. "Wait a second, Vincent!"

Vincent turned around, realizing for a moment that he was incredibly drained from beating the shit out of the man running after him. Who should not have been able to stand up again. "No fair, Hojo, you cheated."

"Can't fight Jenova if you can't even move your jaw to talk to her, boy," the tattoo artist said, putting a hand on the Turk's shoulder.

Vincent felt slightly disconcerted being revitalized by someone he considered his arch-enemy not too long ago. It was weird. Backwards. It was a good thing, but it was upside-down. "I thought you'd written thirty books on how there was no such thing as magic."

Stripes shrugged. "It's different when you can do it and not even need materia. I was a complete windbag back then, anyway. Any true scientist would have accepted the fact that he could be wrong in such a matter, instead of looking for enough evidence to patch together some semblance of being right. And I was wrong."

Vincent sighed. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph...even -you- are different now. Everything -is- gone."

A smirk came to the scientist's lips. "Don't worry. I'd still beat the living shit out of you for sport."

Vincent shrugged Stripes' hand off his shoulder and shook his head. "You don't have to say that to make me feel better, Stripes. And you don't have to let people beat you up to make -them- feel better, either. I'll be fine. I think. Just a little...culture-shocked, is all."

Stripes let Vincent on his way and put his hands on his hips. "If you ever get verklempt, though, there's always the Junon Retirement Castle!" 

"...shut up." 


	18. Chapter 18

By the time Vincent returned to the AVALANCHE Building and proceeded into the basement, he had planned everything he was going to say to Tim out. He'd try to be polite, and get as much information out of him about Cloud and Jenova as he could. Everything would work out fine, then Cloud's problem would be fixed and Vincent could have a normal job again. Vincent unlocked the door, fully confident in his fellow Turks' abilities to resist Tim's goading.

Until he opened it.

Rude was sprawled out on the floor, reading a crumpled issue of Midnight Nation and sobbing.  
Reno was dancing on the table in the middle of the room to a radio blasting some song Vincent had seen Christopher Walken dance to.  
Tim himself was sitting on the edge of the table, making paper airplanes out of what remained of Vincent's case file and legal pad.  
And Elena, with her hair in Sailor Moon buns, was sitting behind him, doing his hair up in pigtails.

He wanted to cry. "I thought I told you guys to give Tim the Hannibal treatment!"

Elena perked up, slightly fearful. "Well...we _did_! Until...um..."

Rude looked up from his comic book and spouted, "Until Elena opened the door and untied him because he promised her he'd do her hair up in those cute little buns all the young girls have started to wear!"

Elena bit her lip in a guilty fashion. "S-sorry, Vincent. But Tim seems quite friendly. I didn't think he'd harm anyone. He only seems to bear a grudge against Jenova. And you, a little, but that didn't matter, because you were gone, and well...now you're not. Um...sorry?"

Between the fight with Hojo and Lucrecia being there and that whole rigamaroll, and now this, Vincent wanted to explode, just then and there. Into tiny bits. 

Tim looked up from making another paper airplane and blinked. "You know what to do now, right, Valentine?" he asked, chucking the paper aircraft into Vincent's hair.

Dead silence filled the room...except for Reno and his boom-box.

"You can go with this, or you can go with that...a-you can go wit dis, or you can go wit da..." Reno stopped in the middle of his dance routine, got off the table, and unplugged the radio. "Sorry," he apologized, sitting down in his chair like a baaaad little boy.

Dead silence filled the room again, this time for real. Vincent glared at Tim, who met his stare with a wide, playful grin. "Let me guess. You had this all planned out, didn't you? Got me pissed off, allowing me to find out who Hojo was, just at the right time. How convenient it must have been for you. I know what I have to do now, but don't rub it in, all right?"

Rude sat up and went to rest his head on Elena's shoulder. "'Lena," he whispered, "whas goin' on?"

"I have no idea," was Elena's hushed reply.

"Apparently, Cloud thinks he sees dead people," Vincent replied to the room. Reno giggled at the notion of Cloud as a little boy talking to Bruce Willis, but was silenced by a rapier-serious look from Vincent, who continued: "More specifically, Cloud thinks he sees the ghost of Aeris Gainsborough. This is what's been causing this big tear between him and Tifa. The notion that, if given the chance, Cloud really -would- have favored Aeris over her simply crushed our lady Lockheart. Only, the tragic thing is that this 'ghost of Aeris' Cloud thinks he sees really isn't Aeris at all. It's Jenova."

Elena gasped dramatically. "Jenova? Why does Jenova want Cloud and Tifa to break up? This sounds like a soap opera! Nothing like what happened before with her."

Vincent looked at the floor. "Not...entirely. Jenova caused another couple to split before making her madman."

Rude blinked. "Another one?"

Elena blinked, too. "Who?"

Rude blinked, three, in tears. "I don't get it!" "I don't know if all of you know this, but Professor Hojo and the woman who bore Sephiroth, Lucrecia Maiers, were married. HAD been married for about nine years, and were expecting a child around the time the Jenova Project started underway," Vincent said darkly, glancing up at Timothy, who had a similarly sobered look on his face.

Elena gasped. "Oh, no! I know what happened next! Jenova distracted Hojo, Lucrecia felt abandoned and found comfort in consorting with you! As things grew worse, Lucrecia aborted the kid she was going to have with Hojo, and amazingly, you got her pregnant with Sephiroth! In jealousy, Hojo went nuts and threw your lovechild into the arms of his new mistress, Jenova!" she illustrated brightly.

Vincent put his claw on his forehead. "...you didn't have to put it so dramatically, Elena."

Rude blinked with a distasteful look. "So Hojo and Jenova were...romantic? EEEEEEW!"

Reno tilted his head, even more tearful. "I still don't get it," he whimpered.

Elena continued on her spiel, eyes a-glitter: "Jenova created fear in Hojo's heart about Lucrecia...fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, and hatred...leads to suffering!" Elena turned on the waterworks. "Jenova promised Hojo something stable, as opposed to the 'risk' in staying with a 'fickle' Lucrecia Hojo created on his own...so through isolation and lilimation, Jenova inflicted a powerful mind with madness, to do her bidding and stuff to destroy the world, and now she's back again with a vengence!"

Rude jumped into Elena's pastel-backgrounded, sparkly dramatization with, "But this time, it's not a powerful mind she corrupts, but a powerful body! Someone who could actually physically, one-handedly really do some damage! Someone stronger than Sephiroth by far and away! But why? Why does Jenova want to destroy this world? And is she still alive, even though Hojo said she was dead? Why?"

"How?" Elena responded.

"Where?" Rude asked.

"When?" Elena gasped.

"Huh!" Reno cried.

"WAIT!" Vincent growled, knocking off Rude's sunglasses and pulling him over the table by the collar, "How do you know that Hojo thought Jenova was dead?"

Elena and Reno gasped at the drama.

Rude gulped, and the comic book dropped from his hand, spakking on the table dully. "I-I thought that's what you said?"

Vincent narrowed his eyes. "You KNEW about him before today, didn't you, Rude? You KNEW Stripes was Hojo and you didn't TELL me! Even when your orders were to find him and bring him back here! You deliberately disobeyed orders!"

Rude had heard reports of some sort of fire glowing behind Vincent Valentine's eyes by doting fangirls and impressed onlookers, but as he hung there by his collar staring up at Vincent's angry, narrowed, red eyes, a chill ran up his spine. He'd never been so scared in his life. Vincent was at least half as physically strong as Cloud was...possibly even more. He could crush him with his bare hands if he wanted to. Rude wanted to apologize, spout some lame and silly excuse, but he couldn't. He was frozen with fear. He couldn't speak.

"I could have expected something like this from anyone but you, Rude! One of the rookies, maybe, but you! You're the oldest Turk around here, next to me, and you've been with the company for years! Have you no loyalty?" Looking down into the veteran Turk's scared eyes, Vincent saw nothing new. Ever since he had woken up, fear had been people's first response to him. Because of that claw. Because of the monsters he could turn into. He thought a bit. Everyone he'd ever interacted with before, their first reaction was fear...except if they were drunk, then it was lust. Fear and lust. Is that all he was good for anymore?

"No..."

Vincent shook his head and let go of Rude's collar. It was no big deal. Stripes hung out with the Turks a lot, and they had gained his trust. Turks gaining Hojo's trust. Oh yeah. The world was still on its side. He just kept forgetting. 

Rude was bewildered. "N-no?"

Vincent looked up, re-steeling himself. His character was developed enough for now. "I suppose it doesn't matter anymore now. What's done is done. It doesn't matter anymore. So...a-are you all up for helping me and Hojo find a way to get Jenova out of Cloud?" Vincent asked, taking a moment to let what he just said sink in. Funny. This was really funny!

The Turks cowered, still recovering from Vincent's outburst, but Tim hopped off the table with renewed, almost childlike, vigor. "It has -always- been my duty to break the Father-Figure of Jenova. C'mon, Rude, 'Lena, Reno. Stick with this guy! You can't go wrong!"

The Turks got up, still shivering a bit, but Vincent grunted. "I've had enough dramatization. I'm not saying we'll do everything right. We might fail and Cloud might become something similar to Sephiroth, but I won't lie to you and say there's no way we can lose. Life doesn't work that way. We'll do our best. -I'll- do my best, at the very least. Whether you come to help Stripes is up to you."

"Stripes?" Elena blinked, slow on the uptake.

Reno grabbed his head. "Oh, the pain! The PAIN! Stripes is Hojo? Hojo is Stripes! What the HELL, man! I'm so confused!"

Tim grinned slyly. "Of course he is. Old news, guys. They're like Clark Kent and Superman. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, man loses a few wrinkles and gains a few hairs and you can't recognize him at all! C'mon, let's go see Daddy!"

Timothy went to run up the stairs, but was stopped by a claw on his shoulder. "You know he doesn't know you're here, 'Number Two.'"

Tim pushed up his glasses with his middle finger. "He will soon," was the boy's reply. 

Vincent and the other Turks watched as their prisoner bounded playfully up the basement stairs, then frantically galloped after him to catch up.

The commotion in the alley by Ed's Bar had drawn a crowd, and all stood around in a circle, looking at the bloody tattoo artist, staring up at apparently nothing.

Reeve and Barrett were there, as well, scratching their heads. Ed even came out himself. "Stripes! What's the matter? Are you hurt? There's glass in the street, a-and your window's broken! Stripes? Talk to us!"

"I'm sorry, Lucrecia," Stripes whispered.

You BETTER be sorry! You're always so -rude- to him, even when he doesn't provoke you! Lucrecia sniffed punitively, hovering directly above him, arms folded.

"I don't know what it is about him. He's just so...something. I just wanna pick on him. And he makes it so easy, Lucrecia. 'Tweren't nothin' mean. Honest."

Just don't complain to me if he gets a complex and comes after you to pay his psychiatrist bills, Yuto Hojo!

Stripes grinned wolfishly. "I can see up your skirt, you know."

Lucrecia yelped and floated oblique to his position, giggling. 

Up in her room, Yuffie, wrapped up in Tim's cloak, pressed her head to the side of the window and smiled as she watched Stripes play with Lucrecia's ghost. She put her fingertips to the window and giggled. Tifa, apparently being the only person in Ed's Bar and Hotel not in the street watching Stripes aside from Yuffie, looked up from reading the case files on the Jenova Project and Lockheart vs Strife at the sign of the girl showing some mirth. "Yuffie?"

Yuffie whipped her head quickly around and smiled, pointing to Lucrecia's ghost through the window, giggling again.

Tifa got up from her bed and crawled over to the window, spying out into the space Yuffie saw Lucrecia in. "What is it, Yuffie?"

A ghost can sense when she is sensed, so she turned to the window, smiling at Yuffie and Tifa sadly, then decending to the ground. Yuffie's gaze followed her, and Tifa followed Yuffie, into the sidestreet where Stripes stood in the middle of the crowd.

Yuto, stop for a second. The saying goes...if you love someone, let them go... Lucrecia started, looking up at Tifa and back at Stripes, And...I do love you. More than I can say. That is why... Lucrecia's gaze bent skyward, to a window in the hotel section of Ed's.

Tifa opened the window to get a better look at who was down there and gasped. "STRIPES!"

Stripes took a step back. "Lucrecia...I'm sorry. It just...happened."

Lucrecia smiled. I remember when I said that to you. Come full circle, have you now? she asked, stepping forward and taking his jaw in her hand, flickering white. I shouldn't expend myself like this. I'll appear again, as needed. All right? The last query faltered a bit, as if hiding tears.

Stripes closed his eyes as Lucrecia flickered again, shaking his head. "I'm sorry."

No, don't be. Please, don't be. A sorry person doesn't help anything. You've helped a person a great deal. I just never thought I'd ever be in your position, Lucrecia said, looking up at him, pity in her eyes, flickering completely out.

Stripes shifted his feet uncomfortably in the street. Pity. That's what came of being sorry. Pity. The last thing he wanted from anyone. Lucrecia...was she all about pity? He hated to think that. 

"STRIPES!"

Stripes looked up at Tifa stoicly, searching for any trace of the pity Lu had shown him just now. There was concern in her eyes, definately. Fear, yes. Behind that, suspicion, and a measure of respect.

All that from over 40 feet away.

A car swerved into the street, and the patrons of Ed's Bar scattered, some squealing, to avoid getting run over. Tifa lost sight of the former scientist in the confusion and cursed her eyes for not being fast enough. She sat there, bemused. He was looking for something in me...did he find it? she thought, looking up at the stars. The same stars she and Cloud had promised under in their youth...and those same stars that saw another promise broken just recently. "God help me," she muttered, "I love Professor Hojo."

Yuffie tilted her head and stood up, unwrapping herself from the ragged black cloak and placing it around Tifa's shoulders. "You love what he is now. Not what he was. What he was would have not cared at all for you. Now you see what he's like when he's awake. It's beautiful, isn't it? Everybody is beautiful when they're awake."

Tifa looked up at Yuffie. The world was upside down. Yuffie just said something profound. "Oh my GAWD."

The repetition of that old phrase brought an even bigger smile to Yuffie's lips, and she laughed whole-heartedly from the very bottom of her heart. When Yuffie laughed, Tifa began to laugh, and when Tifa began to laugh, Stripes began to laugh.

Wait...

Tifa turned around to see Stripes leaning on the door frame and her heart jumped. "S-stripes..."

Yuffie took Tim's cloak and skuttled out the door, shoving Stripes in before closing it and putting the cloak over the doorknob. "Heeeeeeee..."

Stripes rubbed the back of his neck and laughed uncomfortably. "Sorry I was a jerk the other day."

Tifa stayed at the window and turned to look out. "Who'd you let know who you were today? Judging from the claw marks in the street I'd say it was Vincent."

"Yup. That was him, all right. Listen, Tifa..."

"I can't change the way you feel, I know."

Stripes' heart fell, and he crouched down beside her. "Tifa...I didn't realize how much it hurt you when I lied and said I didn't feel that way about you..."

Tifa turned to face him and looked into his beautiful glacier eyes. Something burned in them, now. Funny thing, that. "What were you looking for in me when you looked up at the window just now?"

No pity. Calm. Curiosity. Respect. A lot of respect. Respect he could have killed to have if it came from Lucrecia, or Gast, or even Vincent. It had been there since Tifa started staying with him, he just didn't notice it until now. Why was that? He smiled a sad smile and hugged her. "Something that was there all the time. Something warm, and alive...something I would have killed for when I was Hojo. A friend who respected me, and trusted me. Someone who looked up to me, never really suspected me of anything. Someone I could learn something from and teach something to...and talk to like a human being. Someone who saw me as something other than some scientist who wasted his life with his head pressed up against a cold glass tank studying something that was supposed to have been dead for two thousand years."

Tifa hugged him back as she blinked back tears. "So, you're over this 'noo, you can't love me cos I was evil' bit?"

Stripes sat up and looked her in the eyes again. "The reason I was like that in the first place was that I couldn't allow myself to love. I'll never make a mistake like that again, I swear. I'll be here for you, as a friend, teacher, student, bodyguard, tattoo artist, healer of scrapes and bruises...anything you want. Because I love you in every way I can think of. And if that's not enough, I'll find some way to make it enough."

Tifa shook her head, and put a finger to his lips. "Shh."

Stripes grinned sheepishly and brushed his face against hers with a sigh. "I love you."

As Tifa bent her head to engage in a gentle kiss, the window slowly began to close on its own. Lucrecia floated outside, making sure not to let herself be seen. The more we change, the more we stay the same... A tear ran down her cheek and she choked out a short, bitter laugh. Be beautiful to each other, she whispered, soaring upward into the sky to get a good look at the city, and her next destination.


	19. Chapter 19

Cloud returned to the AVALANCHE building rather late. His lawyers were chewing up too much time, and he needed to know where the Turks could find Hojo. It was almost a madness pounding in his brain, screaming to get out. 

I need to see Hojo.

It had started to rain a few moments back. Cloud was soaking when he all but pushed down the glass doors to the building, startling Sunder, sitting at the secretary's desk while the temp was out on break. 

The look on the Turk's face told Cloud that something went wrong.

Aeris seemed upset, as well, following close behind him and breathing oddly.  
...did ghosts need to breathe, or was it habit?

Sunder stood up pensively, expecting Cloud to interrogate him, or throw him into the wall, or so something terrible to him. His heart raced. The senior Turks were gone. They didn't notice him as they all stampeded out the door with Timothy leading them. It was his fault. 

He winced, closing his eyes, feeling his heart leap in his chest.

When he opened them, though, Cloud was gone, and the slam of the door to the basement cracked in his ears.

Safe for now, the rookie turk slumped down in his chair, fainting.

.

Cloud stood in the doorway of the basement interrogation room, seething, eyes fixated on the rumpled comic book in the middle of the table. 

The pink of Aeris' apparition swirled around him, materializing just above the table. This is what happens when you leave things to people you can't trust.

Cloud grabbed his head. "HOW THE -HELL- ARE WE GOING TO FIND HIM NOW!"

Why do you want to talk to Hojo?

"I...just want to talk to him."

Aeris cocked her head to the side. About what?

"A-about...lots of things."

About why people say you're doing things you know you didn't do again? Like raping Yuffie, and giving the Black Materia to Sephiroth? You want someone to relate to about how you're feeling...puppeted again?

Cloud's eyes flashed with confusion, then a realization. "He...he's making me do those things!"

'Aeris' grinned, biting her finger. He's so stupid... So stupid, it's beautiful! BEAUTIFUL! Jenova's gone, isn't she? He's the one who gave her access to your brain. He knows exactly how it works. HE is Jenova now.

Cloud gasped. "He raped Yuffie...made me rape Yuffie. But...I don't understand. The courts say...the courts said a cold device was used to...and nobody found any kind of device around..."

Jenova frowned Aeris. She was getting tired of this. You're dense, boy.

Cloud looked up. Aeris was scowling impatiently, at him. "Aeris? Is this another one of your crazy spells?" She grinned, narrowing her eyes.

"Aeris!"

Jenova grinned wider...wider than humanly normal, and laughed gently. You don't see it, do you? You're not the good guy anymore, Cloud Strife.

Cloud staggered backward. "W-what? Who are you! You're not Aeris! GOD, where's my sword when I need it!"

Aeris glowed green. The room turned cold, and she chuckled. Hmmmm...what does a business executive need with a sword, Cloud? You've really let yourself go. I just helped you along.

Cloud scowled at her. "STOP IT! You're not Aeris! WHO THE FUCK -ARE- YOU!"

The ghost of Jenova swirled one of her arms into a pike of ice, and began to reveal her true face to Cloud. A cold, metallic device...they almost got it, didn't they?

The hero left in Cloud ignited, and his eyes sparkled with valiance. "JENOVA! -YOU- did this! You...pretended to be Aeris, you lured me into thinking she was there for me again, so Tifa would leave! You spoiled me...and YOU RAPED YUFFIE!"

The fringes of a Limit Break began to form around Cloud, and the paper airplane mess Tim had made began to swirl in the artificial wind. Jenova turned her shoulder to him, then looked back. You really want to believe that, don't you? That -I- did everything. That -I- am the cause of all evil here...

Cloud burned with anger. "I understand now! You were using me like you used...like you used Hojo! Was he supposed to be something positive, just like me? What could he have been, if -you- hadn't come along!"

DON'T interrupt me, BOY. I am not 'using' anyone, as you would like to think. All I have ever done for anyone is given them what they REALLY wanted.

"I REALLY wanted Tifa to divorce me and rape Yuffie. Yeah, that's it."

Jenova grinned rather becomingly and laughed lightly. Exactly. I let you have what you always really wanted -- Aeris. You never let go of the notion that things may have been different between you and Tifa if SHE were still alive. You made yourself, and Miss Lockheart, believe that she was not second in your heart...for a time. But that yearning, that curiosity burned in your mind. So I let you realize it. So yes, you really DID want Tifa gone. And after Tifa left, you were lonely, weren't you? And I was cold to the touch, wasn't I? You wanted something warm, so I let you have it! You enjoyed it! People enjoy such weird thing when they're drunk. Hmm. You know, when you're drunk, it's really your true self coming out, right?

Strife blinked and backed into the hallway stairs, breathing hard. "That's...not true. I didn't want to hurt anyone...I didn't mean it! I NEVER want to hurt anyone again!"

Jenova followed him out into the hallway, still grinning. Oh, now you can't seriously believe everything you do is for the good of everybody else, now is it? A human being is incapable of living a life in which he hurts no one. To hurt no one, no one must feel for him, no one must love him, and he must love nothing. You humans like categorizing every action you take as 'good' or 'bad'. The more 'good' things you do, the more white and pure you are. The more 'bad' things you do, the more stained and corrupt you are. But, dear Patch of Airborne Water Vapor, what one man lables 'good', another lables 'bad', so nobody can be purely good, or purely evil. Therefore, you will never be purely good, just as Hojo never was. You can never really make up for pretending to be Zack, or letting Aeris be killed, or giving Sephiroth the Black Materia. There is no one thing you can do now that would make you a hero to everyone in the world.

Cloud lunged through Jenova's ghost, stumbling back into the interrogation room. "SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP! I can make up for it! I can! I tried! If you try hard enough at something, you can do it, and by GOD, I try! And I WILL try! I will clear my name, and Hojo's! I'll make everything right! I have the power!"

Do you have the power to stop Tifa from crying because you think she's inferior now? Do you have the power to un-rape Yuffie? Do you have the power to give all the coal miners stable jobs, or to run the entire world on solar power? Your ideas shine like the sun, Rain-Cloud, but everything is not up to you. Your refusal to accept the help of brilliant scientists like Shera, and competent businessmen like Barret and Cid so you can make sure nothing goes wrong makes everything go wrong. The tighter you squeeze yourself to be pure, and good, the less good you appear. Why not...just let yourself go?

Cloud sighed, exhausted. "Because then I'd be worse off than I am now."

How can things get worse for you? Timothy has entranced your soldiers with his cult of personality, none of your friends will even look at you. The only people loyal to you now are people you pay out of pocket to protect you. If you go into court, do you expect the judges to accept your 'Jenova made me do it! And I was drunk!' excuse for raping Yuffie? Jenova drew herself up to look down on Cloud, who began to curl himself into a ball on the floor below the table. You are not the good guy anymore. You do not want to be famous anymore. You do not want to join SOLDIER and protect Tifa when you come back from war, because you do not want to. You do not want any of that. -I- know what you want, and -I- can give it to you.

Cloud was beginning to crack. "W-what do you mean?"

Jenova squeezed in closer to Cloud in his human ball, smiling amiably. Do you remember how HAPPY I made Hojo? The joy in his face as he worked. I gave him that. He loved work. Always. Humans come and go, but work...work was always there. Work would never leave him. Work would never cheat on him. Work would never get tired of him. He felt Lucrecia was a burden to his work. She was meddling in something that wasn't hers to begin with. So, I distracted her...I gave Lucrecia what SHE wanted. I gave her Vincent. Full of life, and love, and all that expendable freewinded crap that made Hojo ill, but Lucrecia came to yearn for being locked up in a lab. Oblivious to Vincent, of course. With Lucrecia distracted, I let Hojo do what he always wanted to do. You can never put a 'good' or a 'bad' label on something you really want to do. What you really want cannot really be 'good' or 'bad'. If it's bad, you normally keep on doing it anyway, and if it's good, you don't really care. All there really is about what you want to do is that you like...and love to do it. It's a passion. It's the thing that makes your heart beat. It's what you are. And it's the only real way you can be pure.

Cloud looked up, not holding back his tears anymore. "Pure?"

It's true, since everything is relative, nobody can be outwardly pure. But you CAN be inwardly pure, by being true to yourself in what you want to do. Then it's all you. 'You' is a term that cannot be disputed, unlike 'right' or 'wrong', 'bad' and 'good', 'hero' or 'villian'. Therefore, it is possible to be purely yourself. Tell me, how many times did you just want to explode and say 'Dammit, Tifa, you're second!'? How many times did you have to lie to yourself to make this other person happy? And now, what have you sacrificed that little slice of yourself for? A woman who runs out to consort with tattoo artists. It's keeping things in like that that makes them fester and decay. I've freed you of that obligation. And somehere in there, you appreciate it. Am I right?

Cloud shivered. Jenova's words had the taste of truth on them. "N-no. You're not right."

Jenova smiled, waiting for him to continue...

"...you're telling the truth."

The ghost of Jenova's shoulders shook in laughter. I knew you'd see things sooner or later.

Cloud stood up, wiping tears he now thought were selfish of him off his cheeks. "I will make things right for people...the right way."

So...what do you want to do now?

"I want to give people...what they want." 

Sunder was reveling in his luck.  
Cloud had forgotten him!  
He was scott-free!  
He had survived!

The rookie Turk had once reviled the fact that he went unnoticed, but now, he enjoyed it. He closed his eyes to doze off and daydream about Elena, and when he opened them, the first thing he saw were Cloud's cold, mako-veridian eyes.

Sunder gasped and tried to jump out of his chair and run for it, but Cloud grabbed him by the wrist. "Exciting, isn't it?"

"B-boss, I dunno what you mean!" the frightened Turk stammered.

Cloud narrowed his eyes and grinned, slowly, dangerously. "All your life, you wanted to be part of something exciting. You're getting a thrill out of it even now, even though you know it can't be good. That's why you didn't run after I went downstairs. This is what you always wanted."

Sunder broke into tears. "Mr. Strife, I don't know what you mean! I'm just an ordinary punk! Please let me go!"

"I would, if that's what you wanted. But it's not. You want danger. You want excitement. You want to make a mark. That's why you joined the Turks in the first place -- because it was dangerous," Cloud told him softly, letting go of Sunder's wrist and placing both hands on his face.

Sunder squirmed, breaking into tears. "MOTHER!"

"Well, I'm giving you what you want, Sunder Marigasco," Cloud intoned, lifting the boy out of his chair and pressing his head up against the pillar behind the desk. "You want to leave a mark," he said, brushing the boy's skull upward, into the concrete pillar, and drawing a cross in blood with his bleeding head.

Cloud threw his dead body to the floor. "You've left it now," he grinned, looking down into the boy's terrified, dead eyes. "Look, Jenova. This boy wanted to be a crayon all his life. I think I'll draw on the walls with him, just as he wanted, as a testament to him."

Behind him, a patch of air glowed green, and laughed.

Vincent had no idea where he was.  
Had no idea whether if there was light or dark surrounding him.  
Had no idea if it was cold, or hot.  
All he knew was that he was scared.  
And that he had wings.  
When transformed, he could feel himself going numb.  
The beast took over as soon as his limits broke.  
But this time, he was still in control.  
That was all he knew.

The sound of faint footsteps touched his ears...  
And then a voice, an all too familiar voice, singing half-heartedly, getting louder, along with the footsteps...

"Little bird, little bird,"  
"In the cinnamon tree..."

Fear gripped his heart, and backed away, but there was no ground to provide him traction. He could see no ground. Clumsily, he worked his wings into pulling him backward, until he hit a wall, and his feet gladly felt the bottom of a ledge, although it was cold.

The familiar voice and footsteps came closer, and closer...a foot stepped into a circle of light on the floor below the ledge. Then another, along with the body, clad in a lab coat, that belonged to the voice.  
Hojo.  
Of course.  
Anticlimactic.  
He hadn't expected anyone else, but Vincent gasped, despite himself. His fear squeezed his throat tight and it became hard to breathe. He didn't know WHY. Just the sight of the man made him want to curl up into a little ball and make himself disappear. And all he saw was the top of his head. 

Hojo stood there, singing lowly, for a while.  
It was as if he didn't even notice Vincent at all.  
The little bird's heart pound in his chest.  
And then, died down...  
Hojo didn't see him.

Vincent looked down at his half-transformed body, at his hands, to find claws.

Hojo didn't see him.

All the fear in him melted away, transforming itself into firey, sticky, black anger.

Hojo didn't see him!

Vincent looked down at the scientist. At last, HOJO was the prey. He eyed his head, thinking it an ideal place to strike. The greying slate black hair, pulled back in an exacting, cruel ponytail...the shoulders jutting out not enough. The rest of him, stunted from Vincent's aerial angle. Looked so frail, so breakable. 

All the while, Hojo still mumbled his happy little song.  
Vincent couldn't make out any of the words, except for that he was singing about a little bird.

A little bird?  
Vincent looked at his gigantic batwings, which had folded themselves on his shoulders. He narrowed his eyes. 'Is he singing about me?' he thought, maliciously. 'He's taunting me. Even though he doesn't think I'm here!'

Sticky black anger boiled into white hot rage, backed by justice.  
Sure to win.  
Against a monster who used to be a man once.  
But no more. He had CHOSEN to become a monster, and thought it was a joke to physically change Vincent into one via Limit Break.  
"I am not the monster," Vincent remembered, giggling slightly, "I-I am not the monster. Ha ha...YOU ARE!"  
Vincent pushed with his feet to pounce his rival, and rip his innards to pieces, take his head on a pike and stick it in front of Gongaga, to let the monsters he created there peck at it until the bones turned to dust...  
Time seemed to slow as Vincent reached for Hojo with his claws...

And the scientist looked up.

Vincent's eyes flew wide, and he stumbled for dear life back onto his ledge.  
He knew he was there, all along...  
Always knew...

Vincent backed himself to the wall, wishing there was a window there to escape from.  
Hojo still stood there, looking at the curious monster analytically.  
Vincent's heart beat heavily in his chest, wishing fervently that he'd go away.  
Hojo narrowed his eyes, a faint "hmph" escaping as he cracked a grin.

Vincent knew he knew he was scared.  
He heaved air in and out of his lungs from fright.  
"Hojo..." he growled, after regaining his composure a bit, "what do you want?"  
Hojo hmphed again, putting his hands out in a little shrug and laughing out right.  
"What the HELL!" Vincent snapped. "What kind of answer is that! Give me a straight answer!"

Hojo didn't stop laughing.  
The little hairs on the back of Vincent's neck stood up, and he bared his teeth.  
"TELL ME!"

Laughter.  
Sardonic, cold, hurtful laughter.  
And a stare to match.

Blank, brown eyes, full of...nothing.  
Inhuman and unnatural, unrelatable and unrelenting...

Easy to want to kill.

Vincent felt his rage building up inside him again.  
Yes, it was easy to kill something that didn't let you know that it was human.  
He narrowed his eyes, poised to pounce again.  
Very...very easy.

Vincent tuned out the sound and the sight of his enemy, jumping on him and ripping him to shreds. A scream from him would have been an upset. Only humans and animals scream. Not monsters. Real monsters, anyway. Because they don't feel pain, mentally or physically. And it's all right to hurt them, because they hurt you, and they didn't even intend or maybe even try to. And that was the worst part about them, the not intending to part. The inconsideration part. 

It felt good to be right for once in a world of grey.  
"Right for once..." he said aloud, kneeling into the puddle of blood and gore he had made out of his enemy and smiling.  
It was over...

"Sir?"  
The voice was female, and it echoed from above.  
Light flooded his eyes...  
"Elena?"  
"Sir, wake up."

Vincent stared at the ceiling that was above his head. It looked almost exactly like his...was he home? The Turk sat up. His eyes flew wide. No, this wasn't. Absolutely not! It looked kinda like his apartment, but it wasn't his. Elena was standing to the side of the bed, along with Timothy, who still had his hair in pigtails from the previous night. He was wearing a curious hooded white sweatshirt with white triangles that looked...familiar. Vincent shook his head. "Where are we?"

Rude came in the doorway. "We are in Stripes' apartment, waiting for him. He must've gone out somewh..."

Rude's words faded from Vincent's ears. He felt sick. The fact that he was sleeping in the same bed as that monster...the fact that that monster actually slept, made him sick. He tried to pull himself together, back into the real world. The upside-down world, where Hojo was good and Cloud was bad and...

"...didn't have permission to search the hotel rooms, but it's not that urgent. He'll be back, sir. Sir? Are you listening, s--"

"SHUT UP! Just shut the FUCK up and let me out of here!" Vincent exploded, all but flying out of the room.

Rude blinked.   
Reno came down the stairs from the roof and stood next to his fellow Turk.  
"Hey...what's going on?" he whispered.

Rude frowned. "I have no idea. Damn moody, he is. He probably forgot that he broke through this place before last night. It's not like he hasn't been here before. Thinks he knows everything, gets upset when he finds out he won't get his way. Brat."

"That's an unfounded accusation," Timothy piped up, slightly indignant. "The symbolism was just too much for him. There was a time when I would have reacted the same way as he did if presented with the same situation."

The sound of a door slamming shut downstairs echoed up the staircase.  
"But the symbols have changed! Vincent knows that Stripes has changed since he's been Hojo. Clinging to old ways like that will only lead to more pain, and we don't need that, Tim!" Rude replied.

Timothy stepped into the hallway and looked down the stairs, after Vincent. "Just...give him time. He's only human."

Vincent stormed out into the alleyway and pounded his fist into the wall exactly opposite Stripes' door. The NERVE of them...the INCONSIDERATION for how he felt stung him like a dagger in the diaphragm. Didn't they know who they were talking about? What, was it some sort of sick joke to them? Hahaha, let's play a sick joke on Vincent and have him wake up in the stronghold of this monster who fucked up his life! He'll get over it, because Stripes is different from Hojo! Whee!

Vincent got so angry that he punched the wall with his claw. Assholes. You think you know people, and they go around and step on your feelings without even a second tho--  
His claw had punched a hole straight through the wall of the building. A sob escaped from inside. Nobody was really living in it...what could be making that noise? The building wasn't alive...was it?  
Vincent removed his claw and ducked down to see what was making the noise, and he caught a glimpse of a little girl, dressed in rags, sobbing in a corner. He'd scared her. 

With a guilty gulp, Vincent looked around and found a conveniently placed 2x4 in the alley and placed it in front of the hole he'd made.  
Inconsideration breeds inconsideration. The rest of the world began to open up around him. It was early in the morning...7am-ish. Cars honked in the roads, and the sounds of people walking about touched his ears a little.

The door to Ed's opened up louder than it should've. Vincent was getting a headache from the light. He hadn't been focused enough when he stormed out to let his eyes adjust to the light.   
A giggling couple pranced out of the door. Gazing into each other's eyes, totally overome with each other, at peace. Not just lustful innuendos did they spout. They both glowed with genuine interest and want for the well-being of each other. Vincent could hear it in the tone of their voices, even though he blocked out what they were saying. He didn't need to hear it to understand it. 

Vincent missed that. He used to have that with Lucrecia. He could have had some sort of rapport with any other person he'd met, if he would have let it happen, but he never did. He didn't know why. Maybe after this whole Stripes thing was over, he'd go out and try it. Maybe it wouldn't work the first time he tried, but he had lots of time. Lots and lots of time.  
Vincent's heart crooned at the thought of settling down and being happy again, growing old and having kids...  
He looked at the fuzzy couple and smiled. He wished everything he wished for himself for them, too. 

Were they real? Vincent rubbed his eyes. He could be just seeing something out of the past...the man had short, dark hair, like he used to. And the girl had long brown hair, like Lucrecia did. They were wearing different clothes, though. And the girl's hair was slightly darker and longer. No, it wasn't a vision. These people were real. Vincent never remembered Lucrecia ever wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, and Vincent never remembered ever wearing a white tank top or having...black...stripes...on his...fore...arms...

Tifa put her arm around Stripes' shoulders as he got out the keys to his house. She muttered something Vincent couldn't hear and kissed his lips playfully.

Vincent's eyes couldn't get any wider if they had used a crowbar to pry them open. He didn't know whether to feel sick again and beat himself up for wishing the best for someone who used to be a monster and had the possibility of becoming a monster again, or be happy that at least some people could find happiness, take it as a sign to get off his ass and be happy, too, or to be raging, insanely, jealous.

Thanking every god he'd ever heard of, Vincent made it out of the alleyway without Stripes and Tifa spotting him. Not getting three steps to the left out of the alley, Vincent slid down the wall and pressed his good hand down on his forehead, which was pulsating like mad. Some emotion of several thousand colors boiled up inside of him. It made him feel nauseous. He was angry, happy, sad...he felt like he was everything at once. One part of him wanted to tackle them both and spin them around in a joyous group hug. The other part whined, wondering why he couldn't have anything like that. And another part of him, filled up with white-hot rage again, to want to destroy them both in the name of justice, poetic or not. 

Another bit wondered how Cloud would feel if he found out. Yet another swelled with what Vincent thought Cloud should have felt if he saw... Raw, black, hot, dangerous envy. Envy that made him want to destroy not only Stripes and Tifa, but the rest of the world, as well.   
...Stripes and Tifa...?  
Vincent shifted counterparts.  
He and Lucrecia?

Realization slamming him in the face, Vincent made a mad dash for the AVALANCHE building.

.

Stripes grimaced.  
That's right.  
Vincent had broken down the door last night after him.

"What did that? An irate customer?" Tifa asked, marvelling at the door.

Stripes couldn't help but laugh. It was too funny. "Vincent."

Tifa sighed, chuckling a bit herself. "I wish you two would get along a little better. It won't do to have ourselves tear each other apart once we confront Cloud and Jenova."

"That's what Lu said...kinda," Stripes said, opening what was left of his door and tromping up the stairs to his room to get changed. He stopped halfway up and turned around. "I'm gunna take a shower, all right? You can stick around here or go back to your room at Ed's if you like..." he hesitated. He wanted to add a little term of endearment to the end of his sentence, but he couldn't think of one that didn't sound as if they married or corny. 

"OKay, sweetheart! I'll be back in a few," Tifa replied, returning to Ed's.

Stripes heart leapt and he sighed, continuing up the steep flight of steps to his room. He chuckled and began to mutter a few bars of a goofy, happy song from a musical he didn't remember the title of: "I'm as corny as Kansas in August, high as a kite on the Forth of July. If you'll excuse the expression I use, I'm in love with a wonderful g--"

"Fa-aather..."

Stripes choked on the note and swallowed it, backing away, but not down a stair, from a hunched figure in a black cloak in the middle of the hallway at the top of the stairs, right arm extended. On his hand, the roman numeral 2. 


	20. Chapter 20

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

Stripes' heart beat in his throat.

His breath rasped up as his hands shook.

Every instinct told him to back up, but the stairs loomed deep below him.  
Trapped.  
He was trapped with this monster that he made.  
The monster that was part of him.

Sephiroth Clone Number Two stood there, hunched in his form, shaking with the effort of holding his arm out for an extended period.

It spoke again: "Father..."

"What...wh-what do you want?"

The spidery fingers of the clone's hand - much like the ex-scientist's own - reached out for him.

I-it...wants ME. Wants revenge. Wants to see me scream...

Number Two took a shaky step forward, raising its other arm. "Fatherrrr..."

Should I just let it take me? he coughed from breathing so heavily, and shifted his feet backwards a bit, laying a shaky hand on the banister. I should run. I should run for my life and never look back. But...it would be the right thing to do, to let it hear me scream. It has a right to it. And that's what I'm here for, right? To make it right. I have to make it right.

Number Two was no more than a foot away. Stripes shakily got to his knees, putting his hands on the floor and his head down shamefully. "Do what you want," he said, shaking his head and frowning the frown one frowns to keep back tears. "I deserve it."

Two leaped forward, all but knocking both of them down the stairs.

Stripes flinched, gearing himself up to feel righteous, white-hot pain again, like he did for Vincent and Tifa.

Sephiroth Clone Number Two sat there, with its arms around its creator.

It could have squeezed him till his head burst with the pressure.  
It could have strangled him as he sat there, waiting, and asking for pain to be given.

Stripes had his eyes closed tight - bracing himself for at least a minute.

Then, Stripes realized...

The clone was just as shaking and scared of him as he was of it.

Not it...he.  
And he was sobbing...  
The clone, he was also hugging him.

Stripes blinked, astonished, looking down at the person in the black cloak.

Number Two - the artificial life form, concieved in a tube of DNA - continued to sob, sounding more human than anyone Hojo had ever worked for, or known. "Father..."

"What have I done to deserve this?" Stripes whispered, barely getting it out between his tears.  
"Father, I..."  
"It's not fair. This is a crime against anyone who ever suffered at my hands. A crime against yourself. Why are you -doing- this? Why are you being nice to me? I don't understand!"  
Two hugged tighter. "My father..."  
Stripes was breaking down. Almost reflexively reaching to hug back. "It's not what I deserve," he shook his head, closing his arms around his creation, "not what I deserve."

Tim had lost his words. He squeaked softly, trying incredibly hard not to gush. He hugged his father tighter. He knew if he opened his mouth to try and say anything more, he would lose it. But if he didn't speak, he would continue to hear his father berate himself again.  
And that was unacceptable.

"I'm sorry for what I did to you," Stripes sniffed, his voice scratching in his throat as he kept back tears of his own. "Sorry for what I did to your mother, and her friend. Sorry for what I did to my boss. Sorry what I did to everyone I touched, cut, injected...I-I'm just sorry."

"I forgive you."

Stripes' eyes widened for a second, and he looked up as they filled with tears, clenching his teeth. Then he threw his head down on his creations' shoulder, bawling hysterically.

.

Tim bit his lip till it bled trying to keep silent as his father cried. He had done his job. He needn't do anymore. To stop the hate his father had for himself. That was his crusade.

Tifa had been a great help to him.  
Without her, it would have been impossible for Stripes to get this far.  
But all along, he knew that all he had to say was four words for him.

Imagine, Professor Hojo: all he ever needed was a hug.

Riiiiiiiiight.

.

_Snow can wait -I forgot my mittens.  
Wipe my nose, get my new boots on.  
I get a little warm in my heart  
When I think of Winter;  
I put my hand in my father's glove._

I run off where the drifts get deeper.  
Sleeping Beauty  
Trips me with a frown.  
I hear a voice -  
"You must learn to stand up,"  
"For yourself,"  
"'cause I can't always be around."

He says:  
"When you gonna make up your mind?"  
"When you gonna love you as much as I do?"  
"When you gonna make up your mind?"  
"Cause things are gonna change so fast,"  
"All the white horses are still in bed."  
"I tell you that I'll always want you near,"  
"You say that things change, my dear."

Boys get discovered  
As winter melts -  
Flowers competing for the sun.  
Years go by and I'm here,  
Still waiting, withering  
Where some snowman was.

Mirror, mirror, where's the  
Crystal Palace?  
But I only can see myself  
Skating around the truth who I am...  
But I know, Dad. The ice is getting thin.

"When you gonna make up your mind?"  
"When you gonna love you as much as I do?"  
"When you gonna make up your mind?"  
"Cause things are gonna change so fast,"  
"All the white horses are still in bed."  
"I tell you that I'll always want you near,"  
"You say that things change, my dear."

Hair is grey and the fires are burning -  
So many dreams on the shelf.  
You say "I wanted you to be proud of me."

I always wanted that myself...

"When you gonna make up your mind?"  
"When you gonna love you as much as I do?"  
"When you gonna make up your mind?"  
"Cause things are gonna change so fast,"  
"All the white horses have gone ahead."  
"I tell you that I'll always want you near,"  
"You say that things change, my dear."

Never change.  
All the white horses...   
Winter: Tori Amos

.

. 

Vincent Valentine's footsteps resounded hard and beautifully off the walls of the AVALANCHE Building.  
But that sound was not nearly as beautiful as the masterpieces Cloud had made out of Sunder Marigasco.

A sick grin spread across Strife's face at Vincent's disgusted expression.  
"Beautyful, isn't it?" Cloud all but sang, putting a hand up proudly, showing off his work.

Vincent drew his gun in a flash, baring his teeth.  
That mannerism...  
That gleeful lust for destruction...  
He narrowed his eyes, thinking back at Hojo's attitude toward Lucrecia's death.  
He knew what all this shit was about, and he was sick of it.

"I have no words for you, SIR," he growled, firing at Cloud until he ran out of bullets.

Cloud giggled maliciously, doubling over his punctured stomach and coughing up blood.  
His eyes flashed insanely as he laughed.

"MISSED!"

Vincent's spine shivered and he threw the gun at Cloud's head.

Cloud flumped to the foor.

He didn't move.

Vincent put his head to his throbbing forehead.  
He did not need this headache.

THERE.

"Jenova!"

You got your little poetic justice for a second time. Are you satisfied?

Vincent whirled around, looking for the source of Jenova's voice and wishing he hadn't thrown the gun at Cloud.  
"Where are you!"

You humans are always looking for the physical source of everything. How BASE.

"Jenova, you have no RIGHT to do this! No one deserves it! What kind of sick justice are you trying to pull, bitch?"

Justice is dead...

Vincent snorted indignantly. "You..."

...no one EVER gets what they deserve...

"SHUT UP!"

...and your rights only assert themselves when you when you allow them to. Vincent REALLY wished he hadn't thrown his gun at Cloud's head.

That's what I hate about people like you...  
There's always a "noble" cause.  
There's always a "black" and "white" with you.  
There's always a "right" and a "wrong" and a "good" and a "bad", and there is nothing allowed to be in between.  
And if anything thinks different from you, then they're the enemy.

"You ARE the enemy!" Vincent growled, highly vexed at Jenova's notion.

Justice.  
Honor.  
Duty.  
Right.  
Wrong.  
These things do not exist in a world as big as this. They are dead, except to serve the self. But when people like you think that their OWN justice is backed by something greater than they are...and call it a holy crusade when they go after people who are otherwise innocent... It makes me sick.

"What does that have to do with..."

All of this would be fine if it was all you. But other people get involved if you go about something so passionately. And they like to follow your way without fully understanding why it IS your way. It's easier to follow someone else's program for living than your own. You don't have to think as much. It's because of people like you that people who follow make others miserable, stating that YOUR way is the ONLY way. Confining them in your little fences of right and wrong. Protecting people from themselves. Providing a simple template for people so they don't have to think for themselves...

"What are you talking about?"

ICONS!

"Icons?"

I am talking about icons.  
And you, sir, are an icon.  
More than you will ever know.  
And I find it disgusting that people should put aside whatever else better they could be doing than just moping around admiring you for who you are not.

"You're talking about those people who buy my karaoke tapes? They're morons!"  
Vincent thought a second.   
That wasn't really fair.  
"Well, most of them..."

It does not matter what you THINK of them. All that matters is that you are an icon - an excuse for people to hate each other over. A symbol that stands for and reminds people that they HAVE to do this, or they HAVE to do that, and they CAN'T think that, because it is impure, and if you say that which you are not allowed to think, you are ousted from society.

"Let me get this straight. You hate me because a few screaming twelve-year-olds eject people from their little cliques just because they don't like me?"

The scale of your atrocity matters not. Those ousted from their little cliques become dangerous. That's how you set a Columbine fire. Like Cloud, for example.

"You're reading too much into this."

Art...architecture...love...music...dance...literature...tell me what you think of these things, Vincent Valentine.

"I believe they're what make life worth living. And I have sworn to protect it from those who would destroy it!"

To protect is to destroy. Think of it. Those who are unwanted by those who admire heroes too much want much more to destroy what is being protected if they are not accepted. Kids are cruel. And yet, childhood is that most critical time. The Joker destroys a child's complacancy. That child becomes Batman to destroy the Joker's complacancy. And on the cycle of destruction continues.

"All right, all right. FIRST of all, Batman always ALWAYS made sure that he DIDN'T destroy. Second of all, if icons cause all this without even knowing it, what can they do about it? They can't just stop being icons. Especially after they're dead. Positive OR negative."

THERE -IS- NO POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE!

"Shut up, already! I'm trying to tell you that what you hate me for is not in my control!"

In other words, it's not your fault.

"You twist my words."

It's still as unforgivable.

"What about you?"

What ABOUT me?

"You. You were an icon to Hojo and Gast. Well, mostly Hojo. You weren't there. You weren't human. You just symbolized something. And thousands of people got hurt by him in YOUR name. You are JUST as much of an icon as I am, and I don't think anyone's DYING in MY name. So if you're going to hate me, don't do it for a part of yourself you see in me. It fucks things up."

Jenova materialized above Cloud, a blue female figure with a metal helmet and wires connected to her head, fading out in transparency. Very good.

"Very good, what?"

You passed my little test. At least I know you're awake. But you're still a worm.

"And what's the REAL reason, then?"

You came between a mother and father.

"You arranged for that to happen! What ARE you? Some sick little healer who causes accidents just so she can go back and soothe whoever she deems worthy to heal? A LOT more people than Hojo were hurt by that whole stupid soap opera thing that YOU caused! I was hurt! Gast was hurt! Lucrecia and Sephiroth and anyone who ever knew us was hurt! And you think you can make up for it by 'pampering' HOJO!"

Believe me, there are many who disregard Hojo's existance entirely. As I said, they're all much more interested in you.

"Then how come I don't feel any better for it? Huh? Where's MY inner peace? Where's MY money and kooshie lifestyle, blocking out what other people feel as they're laying on the fucking operating table DYING!"

You never wanted it.

"Ah. So, you're the drug, and I don't need you. That's why you hate me?"

Jenova shrugged. Ehh.

"Why do you hate me!"

Why do you want to know so much? So you can debunk it and make me like you? I have a million different reasons for everything I do, same as you. I can't just boil down the reasons that I hate you into one. Same as I can't boil down the reasons I love Hojo into one.

"So, you love him?"

More than he could ever know.

"You were the one who turned him into the monster he was before, and you loved him then?"

Yes.

"And you love him now, as he's trying frantically to undo all that you ever did to him, rejecting everything that you are to get back to the way he was before you fucked with him, and you love him now?"

Yes.

"That sounds like complete and total hypocrasy to me."

Everyone is a hypocrite once in their lives. Or, at least, they should be. I believe that people should try everything. That's what they're given life for, at least, in my opinion.

"And yet you caged what you say you loved."

And yet again, I freed what I said I loved, in turn.

"Tifa would never have done this if not for you."

If not for me, Tifa would be somewhere else entirely. And so would Cloud. And you. And Hojo. And everyone else. And yet, I never interfere directly. I just push the domino over and it goes its own way. I don't go around 'bewitching' people. That is not the power of Jenova.

Vincent shook his head in exhasperation and walked over to get his gun. "We lost track of something here. Why do you hate me, now?"

Jenova grinned insidiously and Cloud suddenly sprang to life again, tackling the unsuspecting Vincent and holding him to the floor with his hands wrapped around his neck.

Because it's FUN! 


	21. Chapter 21

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE**

Tifa found them sitting in chairs across from each other, tossing a Koosh Ball dismally back and forth at each other. Tim looked elated. Stripes looked bored. She tilted her head. "And this is...?"  
"Taking the kid out to the ball game," Stripes replied.  
"Two hundred and thirty-seven!" Tim whooped, standing up on the chair, doing a dance. Tifa whipped her head around. His black cloak hung on the coathanger.  
Tifa gasped. "You're the boy from the street with the cloak!"  
Tim nodded energetically. "Sephiroth Clone Nummer TWOOOO!" He held up two fingers.  
Stripes slid both his hands down his face. "His body, anyway."  
Tifa looked confused. "Huh?"  
"It's a long story."

It took about a half an hour to explain in great detail how and why Tim came to be to Tifa, but her mind wrapped around it pretty quickly. "Aww...so even after he threw you down the garbage shute and left you to die, you still want to give him a hug! That's so cute!"  
"Just what I needed. The only reason I came back at ALL was to give the people of this planet a chance to put me to justice for my crimes against humanity. And what do I get? A gorgeous chick who thinks I'm great, and the son that I lost given back to me," Stripes moaned.  
Tim looked up from chewing on his sleeve. "Dat sucks."  
Stripes glared at Tim. "You know, you could have left after the whole big Crusade Hug-Monster rip-off and let your message permiate my soul."  
Tim shrugged. "Ehh..."  
"Not like Tifa forgiving me was an affirmation enough that I don't suck as much as I think I do."  
"You could have been under that 'Oh, I have a soul until I experience one true moment of happiness' deal. Cos it'd suck if, you know, you got all evil and didn't help us kill Cloud and Jenova and stuff," Tim said, letting the sleeve of his sweatshirt dangle off the edge of his arm. The sweatshirt was at least three sizes too big for him.  
Tifa was enthralled. "You mean, like, on Buffy?"  
Stripes made a panicked "Huh?" noise.  
"Yeah, when Angel lost his soul..."  
Tim began. "And did all this mean stuff to everybody..." Tifa continued.  
"And poor Giles! Oh, I cried!" Tim wailed, hiding himself in his sleeves.  
"So did -I-!" Tifa gaped, putting a hand to her chest.  
"Stripes, don't kill Giles's girlfriend, please!" Tim begged, taking Stripes' hands.  
Stripes looked to Timothy, then to Tifa. Then to Timothy. Then Tifa again. "All right. Here's the plan. I vote that we NEVER ever ever have that sort of conversation between the three of us again."  
"But it was just the two of us," Tifa said, mussing Stripes' hair.  
Stripes gave them both a tried look. "Exactly."  
"Anyway, we go kill Jenova, yes?" Tim asked cutely, hiding his nose in his sleeves.  
Stripes bristled and rolled up Tim's sleeves to the elbows. "No son of mine is going to go around town dressed as a homie mental patient. Anyway, yes. We go kill Jenova now. The Turks should be here any minute with the lynch mob to overthrow Cloud, too." Stripes turned around thoughtfully and mused about what he had just said, Tim, of course, fixing his sleeves back the way he liked them again. Stripes then said: "You know...this is SO totally not what I pictured the whole AVALANCHE, save the Planet, kill the Sephiroth thing to turn into after I died. Are you SURE this isn't just some weird marijuana nightmare I'm having after you guys knocked me out on the Sister Ray scaffolds?"

A minute passed, and the Turks arrived with the angry lynch mob in-hand.  
Reno all but tackled Stripes when he opened the door. "Yo, wassap, H-dawg? We got ALL da boyees from da east side, west side, north side an' south side of Junon comin' up smak in yo HOOD!"  
Stripes blinked.  
Elena gave Tifa a hug and giggled. "We could only find half the citizens. Hope it's good enough. And...oh! Damn, this would have been a lot more effective if it were at night!"  
So, eight hours passed, Stripes got his tattoos up to number 25 with a small butterfly on some guy's chest, and a teddy bear on the back of a very tough-looking man's neck, where no one would ever see. And the sun set, and the stars came out.

Barrett tapped his foot impatiently on the sidelines.  
Rude handed Stripes a microphone. "PA system?"  
Stripes was about to test to see if it worked when Reno snatched it out of his hand. "Can I get a HEY, HO outta dis crowd!"  
He got silence...  
"Ah SAY-YUHD--"  
...and then a face full of Barrett Wallace gun-arm...  
...there was a FLUMP...  
...and then the "HEY, HO!" came.

Stripes blinked.  
And Barrett handed the mike to him.  
Stripes cleared his throat, and looked around him. The faces of those wronged by the AVALANCHE Corporation in the past half-decade burned brightly by the light of their torches, pitchforks, guns, swords, bows, arrows, artillery and stuffed animals, fervently awaiting words to stir them to action. Stripes decided Tifa had them.  
Tifa glared at him and spoke legendary words into the microphone: "HEY! HO! Let's go!"

The mob took to the streets to find the AVALANCHE building, and began climbing and picking at it from the ground. Stripes, Tim, Tifa, Rude, Reno and Elena formed up before the doors and posed dramatically as light shone on them from underneath. And then they went "Ehh..." and broke the poses. Anyway!  
Elena thought for a moment. "Has anyone seen Vincent?"  
"He probably tore off in a fit of rage last night and is probably being tortured by Jenova right now," Stripes surmised.  
Reno nodded up at the Junonites climbing the windows and thought he spotted a greenish glow coming from the top of the building, accompanied by shrieks of pain and ominous laughter. "We should save him."  
"Yeah..." Reno agreed.  
"We should," Elena added.  
The gang entered the AVALANCHE Building by the well-lit double doors, Tifa in the lead, Tim in the rear, flailing the sleeves of his white hooded sweatshirt with red triangle trim as he walked. Until Stripes spazzed and rolled them up again and told him to pick up his feet when he walked, otherwise he'd trip.  
And then, the citizens stopped trying to climb the outside of the building and followed the leaders in.

Vincent was splayed on the ground, but all in one piece. Doing pretty good for eight hours of torture. He found himself on the roof of the AVALANCHE Building, now. It had been a good while since Jenova had let up on him. Everything was green, and it was hard to breathe. But in that green, came a light blue light. Vincent put his head back on the ground. "Oh, no. Not you, too. Look, I believe in myself and in the power of love, but not a lot of that is doing me very much good at the moment, Lucrecia, so--"  
The blue light faded away. It had forgotten what it was it was going to do.  
AHA! So, even your stolen goods have turned against you now! What do you have to say for that! Jenova whooped.  
Vincent shrugged. "I dunno. I just don't fucking care anymore, anyway. Doesn't matter. You're going to, like, take over the world and kill everybody anyway. Doesn't matter that I digged some guy's chick. You started it, anyway."  
Matters not. You're not the one I want.  
"You know, there's a thin line between love and hate, they say," Vincent said as Stripes stomped through the roof's door, fatigued from the fifty flights of ascending stairs.  
Cloud stepped on Vincent's chest in an effort to get at the mob coming for him from the stairwell, but before he could do anything, Jenova melted the door shut the second Tifa stumbled out of it after Stripes. Peace, Strife.  
Cloud stood down.  
Tifa growled. "Look at you, you idiot! Look at what you got yourself into because you couldn't look real love in the face!"  
Cloud stared at her soullessly, and Jenova raised a hand. Stop, she intoned.  
Everything but Stripes and Jenova stopped.  
"Why are you doing this?" Stripes asked.  
Come to me... Jenova sang softly, spreading her arms to embrace him, I'll take care of you...  
Stripes felt himself being dragged toward the green aparition. She looked as she had back in the Nibelheim reactor, helmet attached to her head, cables flowing this way and that, just a torso with wires sprawling out of it, like a cyberpunk naga. The only difference now was that she had arms, slender and strong, with long fingers. They reached out for him, and he struggled. "Stop it! Stop...why did you do this to Cloud and Tifa? They didn't deserve it!"  
Jenova continued as if she didn't hear him, folding her arms around him, ...protect you...  
Stripes could feel the old, safe sensation he had felt under her influence when he was alive before. Just curl up in Jenova and everything would be all right. Back in his comfort zone, so he wouldn't have to feel any of the pain he had caused, detached and unaware of the world around him. He had had enough of that. "No more! I won't hide in you anymore!"  
Calm, calm down... Jenova had him, now, immobile, in her arms. She stared into his eyes as if his sunglasses weren't there, saw them red from crying with Timothy on the floor of his house, and closed them with a breath. You're exhausted...  
Stripes fought to open his eyes again, but Jenova was too strong. Why was he always so helpless against her? "Jenova, stop..."  
And he was asleep.

Curled up, in his dreams. Where she wanted him to be. Where she could talk to him better. "Hojo...listen to what I have to say."  
Stripes opened his eyes, and he found himself in the reactor at Nibelheim. Jenova's skin was blue, and the wires were silver, exactly as in the reactor, a spotlight on her in the blackness showed only her head and torso. The mask she wore was gone, though, and she no longer had arms. And she stared at him, with her blue face shadowed by the helmet that connected her to everything else. Stripes uncurled himself from his place on the floor and looked up at her. "Do I have a choice?"

"Please. I want to apologize."

"For screwing up two perfectly nice kids' lives? Why are you apologizing to me for, then? Fix them and be done with it!"

"I cannot."

"Why not!"

"I can only push things one way or another. If they move my way, they may do it because of my influence, but only because they wanted to do it after I gave them the idea. Seeds can die, Hojo."

"Then why plant them in the first place!"

"There can be no judging whether a tree is good or bad for something when you plant the seed for it. Most people just like to watch things grow and sprawl out of things of their own free will."

"You're still controlling Cloud, the way you were controlling me," Stripes said defensively. "We aren't toys, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"And?"

"That is why I want to apologize."

Stripes folded his arms. "Well...I'm listening, whether I want to or not."

"I removed you of your life the first time. I made things so interesting for you at first, and then spoiled you out of anything afterwards. I wanted to protect you from anything that could harm you. But that was doing a greater disservice to you than anything else in the world. I cannot protect you from your life. I wish I had realized this sooner, but I was so caught up in trying to make things better for you in the literal sense. I didn't want Lucrecia to die, so I kept her alive, but you never asked me. You never asked me. And you got stuck, and there was nothing I could do until now. I present you Cloud as a depiction of yourself, and you awakened beautifully to it. But how you will run with this is up to you. I'm sorry it seems as if I play with you as children play with toys...but when it comes right down to it, I probably am a child, after all. A child who is beginning to learn how to grow up. And that someone else's toys aren't so important anymore. I just wanted to glue them back together before I gave them back to the person I stole them from. To make it right. I only want to make things right."

Stripes looked up at her, trying to look behind the shadow the helmet had placed over her eyes. "If you are anything like us at all, you know that it's impossible to do nothing but good in the world."

"But I can try to fix things that I mess up, can't I?" Jenova asked. She sounded more frightened. Stripes narrowed his eyes, noticing some sort of shift in her.

Stripes walked towards her and put his hands on some of the bigger multitude of wires. "Some things just can't be fixed."

"I can't just stand there and watch, though. Lucrecia was just standing there and watching you deteriorate! I had to do something. I had the power. I was only trying to make things all right. I was only trying to make it a happy ending. And I...made it worse. I made it worse!" she choked, struggling to free her shoulders from the wires so she could cry into her hands.

Stripes thought of all the conversations he had had with Tifa, trying to convince her that life really was better than it seemed, trying to repair her faith in Cloud...all of that had ultimately led her back into his own arms. Stripes blinked back his own tears, but stayed silent.

Jenova tried to free herself again. "I try to give people what they want," she glowered, lowly, "that is my function. That is all I am capable of. But why do people really want to destroy themselves? Why do they ultimately not want to live? Don't they understand how miniscule and delicate the odds of their existance are in the first place? How wonderful it can be to feel both hot and cold? How miraculous tears are, and how wonderful laughter is? Why do people want to trap themselves in ruts instead of doing what they dream? Where did this trend of cynicism start? Each person is presented with ways to improve the quality of their life every day...but very few of them can even recognize them. They'd rather hide in their illnesses, or shield themselves with their insecurities and let themselves just sink in their sadness. Why?"

"Probably because it's human nature to take the roughest track and try to beat it uphill. If it's easy, it's probably not as worthwhile. There is value in hardship. Even if the only value is the hardship. It's not your fault if things can't turn out into fairy tales. That's why we have fairy tales. That's why we have art. So we can look at something beautiful in the midst of all this hardship. Some people get caught up in fairy tales, though. And they get mad that life can't be perfect. And the more they try to change it to be perfect, the less everyone else wants to listen to them. And the more cynical they get. Personally, I've learned it's a little easier to accept things as they are, because they're so hard to fix. But it's probably not true with everything, because the world is a huge-ass place, and there are so many variables."

"Either way...I messed up your life at first, and this is your second chance. You may have to hide for a while for people to forget about what you did to them before, but I'm through fixing things."

"Through playing?"

"You have no idea how late I am waking up to reality. There's no time for me to play anymore. I have other things to do now. There are others...many others like me. Some are still children, playing with toys, and others...aren't. We have wars and hardships and divorces and brawls and friends and joy and love, just as you do. I think I'm through playing, though. It's time for me to truly leave. It's time for me to truly give you your power back."

"My power?"

"My power comes from the people I drain it from. You may not know how to use it. Most of it's on automatic for your brain, and I can modify it to my liking, but it's essentially your own power over your own life. Now, wake up. You've things to do."

Stripes snapped back awake. Tifa, Vincent and Cloud were still under the influence of the Stop spell, but it wore off in a moment. Clouds had gathered during the day, making it grey before the sun had set, and lightning now bristled in the sky. Cloud grinned evilly, pointing his gun at Stripes first, and then Vincent, and finally Tifa. "Shoot. I dare you," Tifa said.

"Don't tempt me, bar wench," Cloud growled, stepping toward her.

"I'd rather be a bar wench than a statue left to rot on a pedestal of glass. Rather be something real than just an ideal floating around inside someone's skull."

It was moments like this that made Stripes realize just how much he loved Tifa. And want to strangle Cloud for being blinded by an ideal, just as he used to be. Cloud said nothing, but moved within a foot of his wife. She didn't flinch. "If this is what it takes to wake you up," she said, grabbing the barrel of the gun and holding it to her abdomen, "then shoot. Feel your hands, feel your skin, feel the blood, feel your heart and your head and everything else that's numb to you," she said dangerously, then contorting her face into a bitter frown, "just make sure you wake up. I couldn't stand it if you stayed like this."

Stripes took off his sunglasses wiped his eyes with his forearm. Part of him wanted to save her, but it was more important that he let this happen. It wasn't his fight.

Vincent gasped and moved to get up to rescue her, but Stripes stepped on his chest before he could do anything. "You do anything to fuck with them, Valentine, and I really WILL kill you," he growled.

"Then I guess you'd like to add Tifa's blood to the collection of half the population of the planet on your hands," Vincent bellowed, shoving Stripes' foot off of his chest, getting up and digging his claw into Stripes' forearm.

He took it without a flinch, and turned his back to the Turk, still watching Tifa and Cloud.

The soddered door was beginning to come loose. He could hear Reno's hollering over most of the others' voices. "IF YOU'RE GOING TO SHOOT HER, JUST GET ON WITH IT!"

BANG. 

"TIFA!" Cloud's voice rang out into the darkness.

The door came loose just as Tifa's body hit the concrete.

Cloud's hands were shaking, and he was breathing heavily. The shaking got so bad that he dropped the gun, and it went off again and shot into the sky. Cloud jumped and covered himself, still shaking. He looked down at Tifa. She looked up at him with a smile, and raised her hand to stroke his cheek. "Rise and shine," she whispered.

"Tifa!" Cloud sputtered, taking her hand as it fell away from his face and holding it there. Hyperventillating and nauseous, nearly blinded by his tears, he kept sputtering: "Tifa! Tifa, I love you! I love you! Oh, God, I love you! I..." he took several deep breaths before he was able to speak again, "I...didn't tell you enough. I didn't tell you enough. :gasp: Thank you..." the rest of it was lost to the public ear as Cloud bent his head to her abdomen and cried. 


	22. Chapter 22

**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO**

Time seemed to stop once again on the roof of the AVALANCHE Building.

Stripes shrugged Vincent off of his arm. Vincent opened his eyes wide and made it quite clear that he was ready to start another fight. Stripes glared at him and shoved him to the side.

He walked toward Cloud and bent down so that he was eye-level with him. "It's over now..." he said, looking down at Tifa's serene face and blinking back his tears. "It's going to take a while for the pain to subside, but I can help you take the first steps to--"

"You did this to me..." Cloud interjected. Stripes blinked and stood back as Cloud set Tifa's body down and grabbed up his gun. His hand was still shaking as he pointed it at him, and cocked it.

"Jenova...you said you were done meddling..." Stripes said, looking around in the air for some sign of her, but finding none. 

Cloud's lips broke into an unbecoming smile, and he cackled, staggering forward, mocking him: "'Jenova! You said you wouldn't meddle anymore!' HAHAHAHAHA! A-HAHAHAHAAHAA! You're...sooo...stupid!"

Stripes glared at Cloud incredulously. "Jenova said she made--"

"It's nice to have someone to blame everything on, isn't it, Professor?" Cloud grinned, picking Tifa's dead body up. "That's right. Give me the snotty 'I never!' I can take it. Especially from YOU!"

"Strife, what the--"

"Jenova bent over and let you give it to her one more time, didn't she? She's so good at that!"

Vincent looked from Cloud to Stripes. "What the fuck is he on about?"

"Jenova confessed to controlling everything that's been happening. She said that she pushed Cloud into doing everything awful he's done...for me."

"For you!" Vincent looked appalled.

Stripes closed his eyes and looked down.

"Ah, but you were wrong! She lied! The world does not revolve around Professor Hojo. Jenova's world revolved around Professor Hojo. Mine," he said, cocking his gun, "does not. And never did. You came here looking for a villain. And because she liked me, she took the rap. Just like she took it for you. You just don't like to admit it. Blame everything on Jenova, she gets fucking scared and confesses even though she didn't do jack shit, and you're a clean man! She thinks she's just like Jesus, but what she really is is a codependant little ho who only wants to LOOK bad," Cloud cackled, laughing hysterically, shooting at Vincent.

Stripes jumped in front of him and took the bullet in the arm Vincent had had his claw in. Stripes slumped to the concrete.

Vincent stepped over him without a second thought. "So, you're saying you're a REAL sick fuck instead of just being puppeted into being a sick fuck?"

"Got it in two," Cloud said, grinning, looking down at Tifa. "Your little minions are so fucking smart, babydoll. You must be proud of them! I'm proud of them, too! How'd you make them so smart, eh?" he asked her, licking the side of her face. Her right hand came loose and dangled as he held her at mid-back. "And you know that also means Hojo is the same way. He CHOSE to devote his life to her. He CHOSE to perform all of those horrible experiments. Each and every last one. He's just come down with a bad case of guilt. Jenova must have made him SO happy when he found out he wasn't responsible for his own actions!"

Vincent's eyes flicked back at Stripes for a second.

He hadn't moved.

"You really are a disoppointing person," Vincent said, "I really had my hopes up that Stripes was right about you, but no. You're just like Hojo, after all."

"Why wouldn't I be just like him? There's no proof that I even existed in the first place anymore!" he said, giving Tifa a squeeze. "You must be glad to know that there are freaks like me around to make boring fucks like you look like heroes," he grinned, licking his teeth.

"You're trying to get to me angry," Vincent mused emotionlessly, holding his own gun up. "It won't work."

Stripes found himself unable to do anything but stare at the ground. His arm was bleeding in two places, but he didn't bother to heal himself. _So it was all me, after all..._

Cloud motioned his head upward and laughed again. "You can't shoot me. You've an obligation to justice. If you shoot me, the people of the city never get to reap their glorious revenge on me...justice will never be served!"

Vincent put away his gun. "You're right. But the only reason you said that was so that I'd shoot you anyway. Nope. I've got a much better punishment for you, Cloud Strife. It's called reality."

Cloud edged closer to the roof.

"Something that both you and Hojo have always been trying to escape."

Cloud pulled the trigger again, but his gun was empty.

"The childhood teasing. The comparisons to other people. Gast. Zack. The girls that left you after the altar. Lucrecia. Tifa. The emnity for the little boys that inspired the little girls to leave. Me. Stripes. It went on and on, in your heads, like a prayer. Like a God. You worship your own self-loathing. You're not happy unless it's your fault. If someone means for something to not be taken personally, you do so anyway. The world revolves around you. The world would be so much emptier without you. Those people down in the city. These people behind that door. They're stupid and don't deserve any sympathy because they don't appreciate all the little intricacies in your brain, and they do it on purpose. They deserve to die."

Cloud was still. Vincent continued.

"For fuck's sake, the world does not revolve around you two little princes! You're not going to make the world a better place by trying to make the world a better place. You're not going to make the world a better place by hating yourself, either. The only way to really get what you want is to want what you have. Everything has to be bigger, better, faster, more expensive, deadlier, everything has to move you to tears and everything has to be sexy. And if it doesn't, it doesn't deserve your attention. Grow up! It's not personal! It's NEVER been personal! You think too much! Cloud, just because the fucks in the army didn't think you were good enough for SOLDIER doesn't mean you weren't good enough period. You didn't have to pretend to be Zack, and you didn't have to save the world. You were surrounded by people who were hard on you in jest because you kept opening yourself up to being criticized. You could have come back to Nibelheim after you failed and they would have accepted you just the same!"

Cloud narrowed his eyes.

Vincent turned to Stripes. "Hojo, I'm not interested in how you grew up, or who teased you, but people only say those things because they are moved to care, and not just to be malicious. And if it is malicious, then that's THAT kid's problem and not yours! You are not under attack until you make a move to attack, and then you've created something out of nothing. That's when you REALLY make enemies. And you have done absolutely nothing for so long that your enemies have become dependant on you being there to hate them in return. Get over it."

Stripes sat up.

Cloud edged closer to the edge of the roof.

"Stripes, make yourself useful."

Stripes got up and took Vincent's gun. The boy took the bait. "You shoot me, you shoot you, you know?" he chided, stepping closer to Stripes. "And I don't think Tifa'd be too happy about that, you know?" Cloud's hand slid into Tifa's pants. Vincent circled out of Cloud's visual range as Stripes' hand began to shake. A loud falsetto cracked through the air. "Ohh! Oh, that feels sooo good, Cloud! Give it! Give it! HARDER! Yeahh..."

Rude kicked at the door. A few more, and the hinges would give way.

Stripes clenched his teeth.

One swift movement of the trigger...  
One...thrust.  
And it would be over.

He blinked.  
It didn't matter.  
What mattered was that Cloud would be brought to justice.

Stripes held the gun steady.

Vincent came from behind and knocked Cloud out, just as the crowd came with its pitchforks and torches.

Reno led the group. "What the hell went on? Where's Cloud!"

"It's over." Vincent announced, hoisting Cloud's body onto his shoulders.

"Oh my God!" Elena gasped. "Is he dead?"

Vincent shook his head. "Worse. He's alive."

Rude took one of the yokels' pitchforks and stopped Vincent cold. "Sir, don't make me use this."

"Cloud is to stand trial for his crimes against Miss Kisaragi, and Miss Lockheart. No amount of vigilante bratishness is going to make anything any better. Make me the villain. Call me the killjoy. But if Cloud is killed, a momentary hunger for vengence might be fulfilled, but it'll be as pointless as an ad for dish soap, and won't benefit anyone in the long run."

Rude threw the pitchfork down. "You and me. Right here. I'm tired of your righteous--did you say Miss Lockheart? What did he do to--"

Vincent walked through the crowd with Cloud unobstructed as Stripes stood up, Tifa's body in his arms. The crowd rushed for him, and there was sobbing, shouts of "what happened!" and "oh my God!"

He followed Vincent down the stairs, and the crowd followed him.

Vincent was leading the way down the street to the Detention Center, but everybody seemed to be following Stripes. They were halfway down Junon's Main Street. Stripes seemed like he wasn't fully aware of where he was going, until he stopped suddenly.

He looked at Tifa's face. It seemed wrong for her to be this way. Untold pages of wrong. Years and lives of wrong. 

She was so young...  
Too young.

He remembered what he had said to Rude about how children shouldn't die before their parents. Granted, Tifa's father was killed by Sephiroth, but she was still in her prime. Not even as old as Sephiroth was when he died...

He set her down on the cold asphalt.

He could hear the crowd murmur behind him.  
"What's going on?"  
"The crowd's stopped..."  
"That means HE's stopped!"

Vincent looked up and turned around. The crowd began to form around him and Tifa, and began pushing him back. He closed his eyes as the Junonites passed him. "I give up..." he said to no one. He repressed a shameful, childish pang of wanting to cry. "He doesn't even need a name for them to love him more than me, does he? Lucrecia, Junon, the world..."

The crowd wondered at Stripes and Tifa again...  
"What's he doing?"  
"I don't know!"  
"Why's he glowing?"

Something in Vincent's head snapped. He dropped Cloud on the street and got out his gun. "NO," he told Stripes.

Stripes didn't move his head to acknowledge the Turk, despite the fact that his word was laced with deadly implications. He answered his rival sadly: "I've played the destroyer for too long...I want the chance to fix things."

"If you do this, it'll mess things even more, Hojo!" Vincent snarled, cocking the gun. "Revive her, and you'll completely destroy everything she tried to work for!"

"EVERYTHING SHE TRIED TO WORK FOR IS ALREADY DESTROYED!"

The silence that followed was deadly.

Reno had taken it upon himself to scoop Cloud's unconscious body off the asphalt. He looked at his superior questionably. "Sir, you're being unreasonable..." Rude, Elena, and everyone for a square mile were quick to follow.

The crowd began to mutter questions that were the seeds of accusation.  
Was Vincent on Cloud's side?  
Hojo? Who was that? They didn't remember HIM.  
It didn't MATTER if he was dangerous in the past.  
He was helping them NOW, right?  
Vincent was getting in the way of their glorious revenge!  
Unreasonable!

Vincent had had enough. "That's _it_!"

BANG!

The gunshot rang in the sky,  
and the crowd was silent again.

"God dammit, I'm not on his side!" he looked to Reno, Rude and Elena, the other Turks who had served under him, the patrons at the bar who used to look up to him with stars in their eyes... was no one on his side? Would no one listen to reason? 

"Are you so eager to believe that I'm an enemy? Are you so THIRSTY for something to happen to make everything a happy ending? Look at you! You're like CHILDREN! Calling ME unreasonable! This is NOT a fairy tale! This is real life! In real life, people don't all like each other! In real life, people steal from each other and rip out other people's hearts! In real life, the mad scientist who tried to kill everybody before DOESN'T get better in five days and suddenly wants to help save the world! And in real life, people DIE! AND THEY DON'T COME BACK TO LIFE AFTER THEY DIE!"

The crowd consciously took a step back from him.  
Vincent was shaking.   
No outburst had ever left him shaking before...  
_What's wrong with me?_

Lucrecia was watching from one of the taller buildings. Constant grinding can wear an iron rod into a needle... she said. From his spot in the crowd, Tim looked up at her.

Vincent's breathing was heavy, and he suddenly felt rusted and used.  
Rusted and used...  
_They have a better machine, now..._ he thought. He sank to his knees and his eyes unfocused. Blinking heavily, he found it harder and harder to open them. _...one that's not broken like I am...but that's all right...because I need to rest..._, he thought as he let his face sink to the pavement, _Yes...rest..._

And in real life, the people all liked each other.  
In real life, nobody stole anything or ripped out each other's hearts.  
In real life, the mad scientist who tried to kill everybody saved everybody instead.  
And in real life, people came back to life after they died.  
At least this time.  
At least for now.  
At least this once.


	23. Chapter 23

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE**

Tifa's first memory  
was of her father carrying her around outside in Nibelheim on the first snow of the year. She remembered the way his shirt felt, the way he smelled, and the warmth he radiated against the chill air. That feeling of one side of warmth against the background of cold would always trigger that memory for her. All she could sense was this sensation as Stripes held her close in his arms. She started to open her eyes, and everything was a blur, then she started to feel the rain on the street. She was lying on her back, and he was kneeling by her. She blinked and everything was still fuzzy. The only way she could tell that Stripes was holding her was that she recognized the smell of his cologne. "...Stripes...what happened?"

Stripes brushed a hand over her cheek and waited until Tifa's eyes focused before speaking. "I..."

Elena, Rude and Reno had gathered around them. "You got shot..." Elena told her.

Tifa looked down at herself. Her suit was drenched in blood. But she felt no pain. She looked up at Stripes and he helped her sit up. She sat there for a moment to regain herself. "I died, didn't I?"

Stripes nodded.

Tifa looked at the ground. Cloud had done it. Cloud had killed her. But Stripes brought her back. Why? "Where's Cloud?"

Stripes turned to look at Reno, who pointed at Cloud's unconscious body. He was lying a few feet away from them, unconscious on the street. Tifa got up and ran over to him. Stripes, Rude, Reno and Elena followed her. "He didn't want to listen to reason," Reno said.

"After he shot you, he went kind of insane. He confessed to doing all of the horrible things he'd been doing. I thought he was being controlled by Jenova, but I felt her let go, and he still kept on acting the same after she stopped..." Stripes said.

Tifa stood over Cloud's body for a minute. The rain had soaked her quite thoroughly, and she looked down at him from her tunnel of long, wet hair. His clothing was dissheveled, he hadn't shaved in days, and from the circles under his eyes, she could tell that he probably hadn't slept in days, either. She felt the sticky spot on her torso where the blood from the gunshot wound still caked her shirt.

"We really should get out of the rain..." Reno said. The crowd had begun to disperse, not wanting to stay out in the cold, wet weather. A good number of them stayed, however. They wanted to know where Cloud would end up.

Tifa blinked back her tears and pulled her hair behind her ear on one side, bending down and taking one of Cloud's hands. "So, you're telling me that I died...for nothing?"

Stripes stood next to where Tifa was kneeling. "...Yeah."

Reno took a few steps back and tried to act distracted. _Best not to get into other people's personal problems..._ He looked around for something else that was important. The boss had collapsed a little bit behind the crowd. He and Rude shooed some people out of the way and picked him up.

Tifa looked at Stripes' feet. She wanted to say, 'Then why did you bring me back to life? Why did you bring me back to face this? I could have gone back. I could have returned to the Planet...' But she knew that she would have been able to tell what had happened when she did return. She would have only been able to watch from then on... "Thank you..."

Marlene, Barrett and Yuffie emerged from the crowd. Tifa stood up and lost herself in one of Barrett's bear hugs. "C'mon," Barrett told her, sending a relieved look Stripes' way, "let's go home."

As they turned back to the bar, Reeve surfaced from the crowd, followed by Tim. Stripes noticed that the remainder of the crowd had formed a rough circle around them. "Where were we taking Cloud?" Reeve asked Reno.

"Turks HQ, I think. I'm not sure what would happen if we threw him in the detention center," Reno said, getting tired of carrying Vincent very fast. "Half the people in there were arrested for going against his policies."

Reeve shook his head. "I'm not so sure that Turks HQ is secure. We're dealing with a violent criminal who needs to be contained and watched over constantly. And, no offense to you guys, but you all look like you need to rest. I'm quite sure that the detention center has solitary confinement cells, and night-guards."

Rude and Reno looked at each other, then they both looked at Reeve. This was a really different approach. Vincent always cracked down on his suspects personally and immediately. But the rain was really starting to pour, now, and they were both tired as all hell. "Sounds like a plan," Reno said.

"C'mon, Elena," Rude told her, trying to get her attention as she watched Tim and Stripes scrape Cloud off the street. 

"We're not locking up Vincent, are we?" she asked.

"Naaah, but I think we all might end up at the detention center for the night. I know _I_'m drained," Reno said.

Cloud regained consciousness in his cell. It was dismal and grey. He could smell rust all around him. The only things soft were the measly blanket, mattress and pillow on his bed, and they were slightly damp from being in contact with his clothes, which were still damp from the rain. He couldn't hear any sounds from outside his walls. Nothing to interact with, nothing to listen to, no one to talk to...

Just like always.

Only this time, with no carpeted floor.

"...what they want...I want to give people what they want..."  
Cloud's own words echoed in his mind. Words Jenova had inspired him to say. Or was Jenova just a figment of his imagination? Just his imagination trying to create an antagonist to fight against?

He recalled the way Tifa had thrown herself in front of his gun. She had wanted to die, but he wasn't sure he had given her what she truly wanted...

_"...Just make sure you wake up..."_

...she had wanted to die for an ideal...to sacrifice herself so that he could be free of his own twisted ideals. But he liked his ideals. He wanted them. He needed them. So...he hadn't given her what she wanted, and though this technically went against his ideals, it had been Tifa's ultimatum to choose between what he needed to believe and what Tifa thought he wanted. 

Cloud curled himself into a ball. He'd effectively confused himself. He sat there for a good fifteen minutes, trying to clear his head, expecting some ghostly form or another to intrude upon his privacy. He put trying to clear his head aside when he realised that nothing seemed to be talking to him. 

He narrowed his eyes. ...hadn't Hojo said something about Jenova stopping her meddling?

_If he sent her away..._ Cloud thought, _...I'm going to kill him._

If someone had told him five years ago that he would come to _want_ those white flashes of light telling him what to do, he would have laughed in their face. But now...after toppling ShinRa...after raising AVALANCHE...after losing Tifa... He no longer knew what to do. Not that he could do anything from where he was now. _I guess that's one thing I no longer have to worry about,_ he thought.

Running AVALANCHE, keeping Mako Energy away from the people, trying to make sure that the Planet would heal...

Cloud scoffed at himself. _As if that could happen in my lifetime..._ he thought, running his eyes up the corner of the walls of his cell to where they met the ceiling. 

Trying to start a family with Tifa, trying to honor Aeris' memory...

Cloud had forgotten the point at which Tifa and Aeris had become mutually exclusive to each other. He didn't start actually hearing Aeris' voice until he'd moved to Junon. It was only a few months before Tifa walked out on him. _It was probably Jenova all along..._

He could feel Aeris' presence after she'd died in several places. Mostly after he'd defeated Sephiroth at the Northern Crater, but when he visited other places that were close to the source of the Lifestream, he could sense her. It was more like a physical sensation than verbal communication. It had been bubbly and warm, fresh, and tossed in with the feelings of thousands of other people who had returned to the Planet. 

Cloud put his head on his knees and closed his eyes. How could he have gotten that mixed up with Jenova? She'd used Aeris' voice, always, and no violent white flashes, but it lacked that familiar presence despite the fact that the voice was the same. Had he just been that eager to speak with Aeris again? ...just as Tifa had been so eager to be free of him?

Cloud seriously wanted something outside of his head to make some noise.

And finally, something did. Cloud sprang off the bed and jumped against the wall as he heard the lock to his cell being undone.

It was Reeve, flanked by two Turks that he didn't recognize, and a few prison assistants with a cart with some food on it and some dry clothes.

Cloud relaxed a little bit and stepped forward. The second he did so, Reeve made a hand signal for the Turks to move. "Put your hands up!" the one on the left told him, pointing his gun. Cloud put his hands up. The prison attendants took this moment to fit the bed with new blankets.

"Have Mr. Strife searched for anything dangerous," Reeve said in an icy tone. The Turk on the right began to frisk him. Nothing turned up. Cloud thought they were going to strip-search him. The cold look in Reeve's eyes spoke volumes. "Farson," Reeve told the one on the left, "Vines," on the right, "give me a moment with him." Farson and Vines walked out, and the prison attendants left the tray of food and the dry clothes on his bed. The door slammed shut behind him and Reeve walked forward. It was the ShinRa walk. Cloud had seen Heidegger do it, President Shinra do it, Rufus do it... Cloud had never seen Reeve act this formally and businesslike before. But the personally angered look on his face betrayed his formality. "Just to let you know...AVALANCHE wasn't your baby."

Cloud glared at him.

"You weren't the one to start it, and you won't be the one to destroy it."

"Whatever."

Reeve turned his back on him and opened the door. Farson and Vines flanked him, both glaring at Cloud behind their sunglasses. Before the door shut completely, he could hear Reeve say, "Let's go see the warden about getting Mr. Highwind released."

The lock latched again with the same hollow sound, and Cloud was alone once more. He wished he knew what to do. He wished he didn't have to face anything anymore. He changed his clothes and ate, piling the dark blue suit in the corner with the empty tray. It didn't seem that anybody was going to take them away anytime soon. Even from the corner, their smell permeated the cell. Cloud closed his eyes, wishing that someone or something could take him away. Fuck the Planet. He wanted another white flash. 


	24. Epilogue

STRIPES: EPILOGUE  
by K. Trotta

_Yanno, I realized that I hadn't put this up as the sealant to close the book on Stripes when I finished it back in 07. Here is me trying to wrap up an old fic while trying to incorporate the new canon into it at the same time. I'm not sure if I want to make a solid sequel to this because I'd have to preface everything to all hell to make it make sense, but Stripes is still :points at head: up here in my head, and he's most certainly not finished. C:_

July 19, 2008

* * *

A young boy of about twelve with mossy brown hair was running down the street. He'd just managed to escape chore-duty at the orphanage when a copy of the Junon Times caught his eye.

"STRIFE ESCAPED!" the headline read.

The boy gasped and ran up to the machine to read the rest through the glass: "Cloud Strife, former president of AVALANCHE, was pulled into custody last week after an attempted murder of his ex-wife, Tifa Lockhart. Put in lockdown at the Junon Detention Center, he was said to be sullen and soft-spoken all week, until last night when the guards heard maniacal laughter coming from his cell. "It was his voice. I swear to God, it was his voice. We went down and unlocked his cell and there were three men with grey hair standing behind him. They ripped Lefty and Archie apart, and they left me for dead. They just walked right over us...and Strife...Strife, he was dancing and singing like a madman! A mad- CONTINUED ON PAGE 8A"

Denzel's eyes opened wide and he fumbled through his pockets for change (even though he knew he didn't have anything). He shook the machine, but it wouldn't give up the goods. He ducked into the alley when a car drove by and sighed. He scrunched up his nose and made back for the orphanage. He'd have to mop, but they'd have the rest of the paper.

* * *


End file.
